Iran & CO, by Amirali Ghasemi at Delfina Foundation

Iran & CO, by Amirali Ghasemi at Delfina Foundation

The Knowledge - Stop 2: Tehran: Artist Talk with Amirali Ghasemi

Artist Amirali Ghasemi discusses Iran & CO, his ongoing curatorial project. Iran & CO includes an exhibition, a documentary and an archive project. The exhibition gathers a number of site and context specific commissions conceived by the newest generation of Iranian artists, who have all been invited to produce works outside of the gallery space.

The 'documentary/film/installation' Iran Beyond Borders (1960-2010) maps out the history of modern and contemporary art in Iran, from the late 50s to today. It aims to archive and review more than 100 Iranian art exhibitions in the last 10 years, and features interviews with key figures of the contemporary Iranian art scene (such as Khosrow Hassansadeh, Ghazel, Alireza Samiazar, Fereydoun Ave, Hamid Keshmirshekan, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Barbad Golshiri and Rose Issa) on subjects including the impact of the market on artistic practices, the local in relation to the global, the politics of representation and identity. The film will be premiered in Bruges, Belgium, in October 2010.

Amirali Ghasemi was born in Tehran in 1980. He graduated in 2004 with a BA in graphic design from Central Tehran Azad University. In 1998, Ghasemi established Parkingallery, an independent project space in Tehran, and in 2002, Parkingallery.com, a virtual gallery, which has become an online platform for many young Iranian artists. He has shown his photography/videos/design works in Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Canada, USA, Australia, Turkey, Indonesia, South Korea, China, Taiwan and Japan. In addition, he has directed audiovisual projects with Iranian rock bands. 
As a curator, he has directed many exhibition projects for Parkingallery project space and other institutions. These have included Among Them: Deep Depression (2004), Transition (2005), Deeper Depression (2006), Lost in No Space (2006) and Limited Access (2007).

Iran & CO is a production of the Cultural Centre of Bruges, with the support of the Vlaamse Gemeenschap, and Parkingallery projects Tehran.

This talk is part of a series of events which focuses on emerging artistic networks and strategies in the youthful Iranian capital.

The Knowledge - Stop 2: Tehran. A series of events between 5 and 19 October 2010, at The Delfina Foundation. A journey through visual culture, one city at a time. After Damascus, our second stop will be Tehran. With contributions from Mahmoud Bakhshi, Amirali Ghasemi, Malu Halasa, Vali Mahlouji, James Neil and Solmaz Shahbazi.

All events at The Delfina Foundation, rsvp required. Please email rsvp@delfinafoundation.com

For more information, please see website.

http://www.delfinafoundation.com/exhibitions_and_talks.php

Born From The Ashes

Parkingallery is changing from an E- gallery/ nice looking static website to a multifunctional blog / news portal on Iranian and international contemporary arts and design… this decision has been made through around a year of less frequent activities on our website focusing on other projects including the our monumental mega exhibition in a suitcase: URBAN JEALOUSY/The roaming biennial of Tehran . There are other reasons to shift our activities from plain showcasing up and coming artists to a more advanced way of paying our due to the community of Iranian involved with arts, to name a few:

1st of all because of  the fact that the way we Iranians are dealing with Internet phenomenon and its fabulous growth in Iran despite obstacles raining from everywhere (!), we are encouraging our artists friends to setup their own personal websites and try our best to help them both as design studio and a project space to promote and maintain their website while benefit from being linked and featured in our refreshed website.

Secondly despite we’ve never have been acting as a commercial gallery, an increasing numbers of the artists used to work with us did or about to sign restricting contracts with individual, institutions and galleries,which made us think to refresh what we has been showing on our website for over a decade, to be experimental  and less conventional and more and more away from sophisticated mainstream trends, and more importantly focused on new media art projects and knowledge production it the field of interdisciplinary practices.

we believe that current circumstances forces by various players in the scene  made circulation of the art and its makers and contributors in Iran going through severe unfair issues, caused many talented young artist to be ignored to to fall into early professionalism which kills their interest and reduce their intention for experimental projects and practices, having said that what is really a nessesity of our time is building up an news portal/idea exchange pool which aims to track what’s happening now in the art scene by documenting see-worthy happening and events and what has been through by interviewing the key figures in the field, helping us to discover the lines between the lines of unwritten history of our own! ( wow what a big claim!)

Finally to find practical way to make parkingallery’s archive on contemporary arts, which has been evolving through the years, available online and to public.

To make all this happen, we are looking for contributors from around the world who are interested in the arts and its universe  to join our team and/or help us as freelance reporters and photographers, we will write more about this call, very soon.

That’s all for now…
Warm wishes from Parkingallery’s Headquarter

Parkingallery Team