Image: The marriage of Yusuf and Zulaykha, from Jami, Yusuf u Zulaykha, 1595. Bodleian Library, University of Oxford

Featuring more than 60 visually stunning works on loan from the historic Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford as well as works from the State Library of Victoria and other local collections. Love and Devotion: From Persia and Beyond, is the largest exhibition of Persian manuscripts to be held in Australia.

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Original Image: From the series "Confused by the Spectacle Around Me", by Rokni Haerizadeh

“It’s useless to wait-for a breakthrough, for the revolution, the nuclear apocalypse or a social movement. To go on waiting is madness. The catastrophe is not coming, it is here. We are already situated within the collapse of a civilization. It is within this reality that we must choose sides.” – The Coming Insurrection

“The State” presents a group exhibition running from November 10th-December 3rd, 2011 at Traffic in UAE, which takes its title from the book The Coming Insurrection (2007) by “The Invisible Committee”.

The show is a continuation of The State, a socio- historical journal & forum, and a symbolic transition from the last exhibition “Social/Antisocial?”, which dealt with socialization and the current state of people and behavior.

The exhibition is a response to the causes of discontent, namely mass injustice, corruption and greed in our societies and world at large. It calls for a paradigm shift of human expression, to prevent an emerging social condition. It is not a call to arms but an attempt to get people thinking about the global transmutation that surrounds them.

The Invisible Committee is the collective pen-name for a small group of French post- Situationist intellectuals and academics, who in 2007 authored The Coming Insurrection, and in 2008 were arrested in France on charges of terrorism. The Coming Insurrection is a commentary on contemporary society and the building revolt against governmental and economic oppression. It references collapsing economies, crashing monetary systems, corrupted democracies, environmental degradation, global crises, riots, protests and above all, a moral and social decay.

People all around the world have witnessed the collapse of a system, a disintegrating modern social order. Which may just be getting worse. As Mark Twain once said, ‘History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.’ Despite glimmers of hope for change, through the likes of Barack Obama’s 2008 political campaign, we are still in a dire state.We have recently seen the revolutionary Arab Spring, riots and looting in London, among other communal uprisings.

As Rami Farook, Emirati curator & social–historian, explains: “The works presented share the perspective of The Coming Insurrection and deal with reasons for the current social condition, illustrating examples of it, and providing remedies. Similar to the book, many of the works touch on aspects of the self, social relations, work, the economy, urbanity, the environment, and civilization, while searching for a social solution to the present. It is our duty as citizens, activists, mentors, monitors and advisors to raise a clamour to change the conditions. By being warned, the insurrection might be prevented. An uprising is one thing, a successful revolution is another.”

The Coming Insurrection includes works by Iranian artists: Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian as well as; Allora & Calzadilla, Banksy, Ahmed Bouholaigah, Arnaud Brihay, Wim Delvoye, Abdulnasser Gharem, Pascal Hachem, Aman Mojadidi, Jean-Luc Moulene, Hamza Serafi, David Shrigley, Roman Signer, UBIK, Douglas White, Dan Witz, Ayman Yossri aka Daydban, and Akram Zaatari.

* The show’s opening will include an hour-long music performance by singer/songwriter Gayathri and a big-band ensemble. The performance is an homage to 1940s jazz club days and will mark the release of her single as well as limited edition LP and music video.

L to R: Untitled (from the series: Image of Imagination Red (2003) Copyright Rana Javadi, 2001, Untitled (From the Series Iran Revolution) 1978-79, Copyright Rana Javadi, 2011

On the occasion of the “Spectrum“ award, given to Bahman Jalali (1944-2010), the Sprengel Museum in Hannover posthumously presents the first solo show of one of Iran’s most influential photographers and visual artists.

Previous winners of the award are renowned artists such as Helen Levitt (2008), Martha Rosler (2005), Sophie Calle (2002), John Baldessari (1999), Thomas Struth (1997), and Robert Adams (1994).

In this major retrospective, the museum presents a selection of works, which has previously been shown at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona (2007 in collaboration with curator Catherine David) and at Kunsthaus Graz (2009).

In Hannover, the exhibition has expanded this presentation by adding prints from Jalali’s early days of study in London as well as a series produced in the last months of his life in which he experiments with layering of images and word prints. This late series was strongly influenced by the uprisings after the re-election of president Ahmadinejad.

Another addition to the show is a selection of 19th century Persian photographs collected by Jalali together with his wife, Rana Javadi. This collection is normally used at Akskhaneh Shahr in Tehran, a photography museum of which Jalali was a co-founder.

The scope of works on view give insight into the multi-faceted interests of the artist and the number of projects in which he was engaged, often together with his wife.

Not only was Bahman Jalali one of Iran’s leading photographers, but also a writer, publicist, historian, teacher, museum founder, and beyond.

In more than 40 years, Jalali documented the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, as well as the post-war reconstruction years. He began documenting the Iranian Revolution in Tehran from beginning to end, from December 10th,1978, the day of the first major demonstration against the Shah, until February 11th, 1979, the day on which the Iranian army retreated.

The depiction of everyday life also plays an important role in the artist’s work: from the 1970s until the end of his life, he created such series as “Fishermen” (1974-1989) or the documentation of the architecture at the city of Bushehr (1974-2006), for which he often returned to places. The development of such series thus often took a long time, months if not years, to come to a satisfying conclusion for him.

In a more recent artistic approach, Jalali used 19th century photo negatives, which he combined with words, put into layers, and thus created a collage-like visual impression.

Exhibition Dates: May 29th to August 21st 2011

Exhibition Venue: Sprengel Museum Hannover

"Shah Receives the Duke", Oil and gold leaf on linen, 2011 by Bilal Aquil (Courtesy of the artist)

In his first solo exhibition, Reign of the Shah, inspired by the Shahnameh (Book of Kings), UK-born artist, Bilal Aquil narrates a story of the assassination of a Shah of the Imperial Court and the subsequent battles that follow to avenge his death and establish the power of the new Shah. Aquil presents a series of paintings which orchestrate battlefields with Persian miniatures fused with Aquil’s interpretation of Goya’s ‘The Disasters of War’ etchings, ‘The Second of May 1808’ and ‘The Third of May 1808’ masterworks at Traffic, Dubai. Continue Reading

"On the Shore", Maharlu Lake Aerial Photo by: Georg Gerster (Circa 19070s)

Pioneer of aerial photography, Georg Gerster, reveals Iran as never seen before, in his exhibition of 1970s pictures entitled: “Paradise Lost: Persia from Above” at the Wilmotte Gallery from April 8 – May 20, 2011.

In the immediate years before the Iranian revolution, the Swiss photographer was commissioned by the former queen of Iran, Farah Pahlavi, to record the country’s topography.

Gerster writes “Flying over Iran, I had been struck by the thought that Persia’s natural and cultural landscape was predestined to be viewed from the air.” Continue Reading

Rostam battles Esfandiyar - Via Asia Society

Asia Society Museum presents an exquisite fifteenth-century manuscript commissioned by the Timurid prince Muhammad Juki (1402–1444).

This rarely exhibited volume, now in the collection of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, features more than thirty richly painted and illuminated miniatures that illustrate scenes from the Persian national epic, the Shahnameh (Book of Kings). Continue Reading