City. “Anywhere where there were Iranian students,” he explains. The artists and the revolutionaries saw their cause in other movements, Dabashi says. They promoted movements from all over the globe: women’s rights in the Middle East, labor rights and even the civil rights movement in the United States. One poster features an outstretched Iranian arm beside a black arm, both clad in broken shackles. According to Dabashi, the collection has universal themes. “They carry ... a relation to any movement or ideological revolution,” he says. And because of that, they draw us into comparing them to the present. Dabashi no longer looks at such collections as stagnant placeholders of an era. Rather, these collections carry contemporary weight. “It’s a way to touch base,” he says, “to revive the cosmopolitan disposition.” Both Dabashi and Steward intend to keep these posters in motion. They’ll travel from Asheville to Los Angeles, then back to New York before heading overseas. During the lecture’s Q&A, several
attendees noted the shift in media presentation, asking if the digital age had snuffed out print media in the modern revolutionary landscape. “I’m neither antiquarian nor beholden,” Dabashi says of the posters’ vintage look. “The fact is, the digital age is no joke. It has traction, both negative and positive.” The immediacy and global reach of such social-media outlets like Facebook and Twitter, he says, is powerful, immense — unstoppable even. “We must be aware of the material significance,” he says. “But the ideals are the same, only the technology has changed.” X
what: In Search of Lost Causes: Images of the Iranian Revolution whERE: Flood Gallery (109 Roberts St.) through Friday, Nov. 29, and Firestorm Cafe (48 Commerce St.) through late November. Exhibition catalogs are available for purchase at all locations.
T N E V Y 3 DDAOPENING Ev. 2nd
HUGE BLOWOUT SALE!
GRANt. 31st through No Oc
20% Off
Storewide! excludes tobacco, cigarettes & shisha
20% Off
Skateboards & Disc Golf
25% Off
all Wicked Sands
Come party with us! Free Giveaways! Free Food! Live Music/DJ!
(Stop by and see what we carry before the big weekend!)
10% Off
Vaporizers
Some restrictions may apply.
828-505-1558 • 1067 Patton Ave. Asheville, NC 28806 highlife gallery asheville Follow Us on: highlife_asheville mountainx.com
octoBER 30 - noVEmBER 5, 2013
53