From Iran with Love, Iranian artists in The Hague

Squatting on the floor of the gallery next to his floor piece, Karim Allahkhani showed me pictures of his land art projects in Iran while I showed him pictures of my land art projects. Using googletranslate would take too long so we just switched images and gestured. He was one of the ten Iranian artists Mitra Jashni obtained visas for the week-long residency that preceded this exhibition in the Hague, Pulchri Gallery. Seven artists based in European countries, most of them also Iranian, joined these ten. The show has works by a total of 32 artists. Some could not come from Iran and a few are from other countries. The curator, artist and gallery manager, Mitra Jashni, who left Iran for Ecuador in 2010, moved to the Netherlands in 2015. She received over 300 responses from artists in Iran to a call for this exhibition and residency in the Hague. While some of these Iranian artists have long careers, such as Karim Allahkhani who teaches at the Arts Academy in Kerman, none are international names. The show offers a taste of diverse contemporary art practices in Iran today.

Samira Alborzkouh’s subversive realist images of women wearing crash helmets engage with gender politics, such as acid attacks. She was articulate about her work, consciously using the glossy look not just to make a point about visibility and the visual but also as a means for infiltrating into Iranian galleries where hyperrealism was acceptable but politics is not.
Manuchehr Gholami’s gouches are examples of the Negargari style while Saied Khazaie has patched past representations into a mismatch in his work “The royal juggernaut.” Yousef Abdinejad’s “Ghassal” (Baptism) is surreal and whimsical while Tina Bateni’s pop art like painting, “Nanotechnology” and her ‘Head to Toe’ portraits are socio-political comments on the wider world.
Sahar Eftekharzadeh’s “No.11” is part of a series of images on the multi-generational chain of motherood while the abstract made for this show by Maryam Iravani simply has the title ‘Love.’

“Putting color on the face of the world” curated by Mitra Jashni
When: 16 June – 8 July 2018, open Tues-Sundays, 12-5pm, Tues-Sundays
Where: Lange Voorhout 15, The Hague
070 – 346 17 35, info@pulchri.nl
About this show on the Pulchri website.
Video introducing the artists.

Artists:
Samira Alborzkouh, Yousef Abdinejad, Karim Allahkhani, Bahareh Aref, Diana Valarezo, Tawab Safi, Salam Djaaz, Saeid Khazaie, Maryam Iravani, Tina Bateni, Claudette van De Rakt, Larissa Oksman, Manuchehr Gholami, Taha Hamed, Maryam Tavakoli, Hero Sheykholeslam, Atefeh Mohammadpour, Sanaz Ahmadi Ashestani, Zahara Sajadifar, Narges Adilipour, Mona Jafarnejad, Sahar Eftekharzadeh, Azam Eisazadeh, Nazanin Nabavi, Farnaz Karimi, Saba Soleymani, Hamed Heidari, Mehdi Noori, Afshin Bagheri, Amir Mansour Almaloo, Elmira Amirazodi, Morteza Mottaghi, Maryam Khorami, Marzieh Nazemzadeh, Leila Banki, Shadi Pahlavani.