MOP CAP 2015 Finalist Exhibition Catalogue

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About MOP Foundation

Established in 2004, MOP Foundation promotes Iranian art and culture to a wider audience and strives to make a notable contribution to its long-term advancement worldwide. This is accomplished by establishing programmes in modern and contemporary Iranian art, music, media and academia in partnership with world-class institutions.

MOP’s Art & Education programmes include: - A series of artists’ panel discussions entitled ‘Different Perspectives on Modern and Contemporary Iranian Art’ in collaboration with the British Museum - Art residencies and exhibitions for young Iranian artists at the Delfina Foundation and Parasol unit in London - Curate Archive, online residency - Publication Grants - Scholarships and grants in higher education at the Royal College of Art, London Film School and Goldsmiths University of London - The Magic of Persia Contemporary Art Prize (MOP CAP); a global search for the next generation of Iranian visual artists - The MOP CAP Artists’ Directory The charity’s primary source of funding derives from the auction of artwork generously donated by established and emerging Iranian and international artists.

Held in the UK, the US and the UAE, the success of these fundraising events relies entirely on the participation and support of artists and patrons alike. Sponsorship from organisations and individuals also supports MOP’s various projects.

About MOP CAP

MOP CAP is a worldwide search for the next generation of contemporary Iranian visual artists who have the potential to make a significant impact in their field.

The goal of the prize is to provide an opportunity for emerging artists to gain international exposure, and to engage in artistic experimentation and cultural exchange. Through its archival material, including an online artist database and printed publications, MOP CAP aims to provide an educational interchange and contribute to the development of Iranian art and culture.

THE PROCESS MOP CAP is open to young, emerging Iranian visual artists, living in and outside of Iran, through an online application. The profiles of all eligible entrants to the open call are reviewed by the MOP CAP Selection Committee, and a shortlist of up to 21 artists is compiled.

The MOP CAP Shortlist Exhibition in Dubai showcases works of the selected artists, at which time the Judging Panel meet to deliberate on, and choose, up to seven Finalists. Subsequently, an exhibition of the Finalists’ work is held in London, where the Judging Panel meet once again to select the MOP CAP Winner.

Throughout the process, the Selection Committee are available to the artists for guidance, should they request it.

THE PRIZE The MOP CAP Winner receives a one-year mentorship with a curator, resulting in a solo-project at a leading gallery space in London; as well as a three-month residency at the Delfina Foundation.

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Introduction

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A Successful Path: The Magic of Persia Art Prize The main question which has preoccupied a large group of contemporary artists in the non-Western world is how contemporary art can be ‘global’ if its conceptual and canonical points of reference are ruled by Eurocentric artistic ideologies.

Indeed, peripheral cultural manifestations are not typically included in the grand narrative of contemporary art. It certainly seems that we need to address the notion that contemporary art is not always ‘global’, and to ask whether it is possible for artists to be unconstrained by the limits of Euro-American artistic discourses. Moreover, can artists develop a vision of contemporaneity which incorporates their personal and local conditions and their experiences of ‘being about the now’? Indeed, a vision of the ‘contemporary’ could extend to include artistic practices that appropriate Western artistic forms and discourses in a decontextualised cultural environment, providing them with content that is different and transformative. It could also consider practices which initially are not found within Western artistic discourses. These practices may or may not explicitly display internationally authorised global marks of contemporaneity .

Contemporary Iranian art is currently grappling with these issues and questions.

The majority of young emerging artists have been preoccupied with the question of how to be a part of the international or so-called global art scene and its existing discourses. This challenge most likely began during the 1990s when the Iranian art scene witnessed a gradual change, such as incorporating new viewpoints whilst maintaining various prevailing actualities of contemporary Iran. The stimulus for this came partly from the international arena, and also from circumstances within the country. Artists became profoundly aware of the need to register their reality and all its shifting forms in a transitional era. As such, during the past two decades, artists have been focused on the notion of social contemporaneity – one of the most momentous currents in contemporary Iran – and a yearning to participate in the globalised art scene.

Ala Ebtekar, The Breeze of Time, MOPCAP 2009

Mehdi Farhadian, Body, MOPCAP 2011

Parham Taghioff, Bookmark ( Imposed War ), MOPCAP 2013

Ghazaleh Hedayat, Untitled, MOPCAP 2011

Although the international circulation rota for Iranian artists – both those living inside the country and across the diaspora – has been developed during recent years through exhibitions, there is still a tendency to focus on Iran’s established

Behnam Sadighi, Holidays, MOPCAP 2013

Mahmoud Bakhshi Moakhar, Tulips Rise from the Blood of the Nation’s Youth, MOPCAP 2009

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artists rather than younger, emerging figures. It is within this context that the increasing level of production can be seen by this group of artists. While there is no institutional framework supporting the global dissemination of contemporary Iranian art, such as the country’s museums, the role of independent organisations such as Magic of Persia proves to be vital.

Ramyar Manouchehrzade & Ali Nadjian, We live in paradoxical society, MOPCAP 2011

Arash Hanaei, Empty ( Void ), MOPCAP 2013

Babak Golkar, Negotiating the Space for Possible Coexistence No. 3, MOPCAP 2011

Katayoun Karami, Saint, MOPCAP 2009

The Magic of Persia Contemporary Art Prize (MOP CAP) is a highly admired competition, and has attracted a great number of emerging artists whose main ambition is for their art to be experienced and enjoyed by a much wider global audience. MOP provides these emerging artists with an opportunity to use their own voice in expressing the infinite cultural and creative issues that they grapple with.

As a member of the MOP CAP 2015 Selection Committee, I can confirm that the competition has played a key role in introducing emerging Iranian artists to a wider international audience. This event has not only brought contemporary Iranian art to the attention of the vibrant London art scene, but has also functioned as a platform for promoting Iranian artists internationally through the involvement of several worldwide renowned experts and institutions. The artists who make up the shortlist, as well as the finalists and winners, reveal the fact of a diverse cross-section of artists existing in the lists, which ensures the world can hear a broad range of voices on Iranian art. The competition has further provided a dialogue between Iranian artists living inside Iran and those residing across the diaspora. The MOP CAP’s ongoing list of artists, together with their works, will indeed provide an invaluable source for research on emerging Iranian artists.

Going through the history of the MOP CAP, one would unquestionably recognise the names of the best known players in contemporary Iranian art. This proves that the MOP CAP has succeeded in its goal. Furthermore, through its archival material, including an online artist database, MOP CAP provides an educational interchange within the field of contemporary Iranian art.

MOP CAP is now celebrating its fourth incarnation. It is certainly possible to witness its success in searching for the next generation of contemporary Iranian artists “who have the potential to make a significant impact in their field [and] to provide an opportunity for emerging artists to gain international exposure, and to engage in artistic experimentation and cultural exchange”.

Hamid Keshmirshekan

Simin Dokht Keramati, Self portrait, MOPCAP 2009

Farhad Fozouni, After shock Poetry, MOPCAP 2013

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Foreword

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A Foreword from the 2015 Judging Panel It has been a wonderful honour to be part of Magic of Persia’s Contemporary Art Prize for 2015. We would like to reflect here on our experience and pay tribute to the many people who supported our efforts. And of course acknowledge the young artists who have shown their work under the MOP CAP banner this year.

Firstly, our sincere thanks must go to the organising team at Magic of Persia. A special mention to MOP’s founding director, Shirley Elghanian. Her vision and enthusiasm has been backed up with supreme professionalism, warmth and dedication by Art Director Fereshte Moosavi and Curator/Art Director Alexandra Terry. In addition to these three key colleagues, we have been struck by the presence of a wider MOP ‘family’, a whole host of arts professionals, supporters, volunteers and associates who keep MOP CAP going and were invaluable to our work in Dubai and London. We have had warm welcomes at both host venues in Dubai and at Edge of Arabia Projects in London over the two phases of judging.

Being proposed and invited as a judge has meant us working closely with this wonderful foundation and helping to promote a distinguished and well-loved prize. As a group of individuals, who had never met in precisely this configuration before, we brought a range of experience and interests from contemporary art in Europe, North America and the Middle East. Between us, we have backgrounds as artists, teachers and researchers in the practice and the history of art, and we have experience in curatorial projects, media and art criticism. But MOP CAP was new territory for us all.

Being keen to learn, we had many additional reasons for accepting MOP’s invitation. First among these would be curiosity, in particular about contemporary Iranian art. The brief of MOP CAP is to seek out the next generation of Iranian artists, an aim especially relevant for those of us who work in education and

with aspiring artists and curators. We were curious too about the fascinating relationships that must exist between the work of artists who are currently based in Iran and those who form an international diaspora. We knew we would have to acknowledge the complexity of Iran’s recent geopolitical history and show awareness of the enormous cultural contribution that Iran and Persian culture have made over millennia. So we can say that our curiosity extended to the kinds of conversations that might occur between art’s history and its present. Many of us did not know Dubai well, so we were intrigued to look at Iranian work in a nearby Emirate. Lastly, we were keen to work together on this important initiative, to try to make a helpful contribution and to support strong emerging practice in this most distinctive of artistic spheres.

The complexities of being an artist, Iranian or not, are formidable and it is tougher than one can imagine to establish a place on a global cultural stage. Emerging artists are faced with an unprecedented diversity of practices, intentions, materials and media at their disposal. Even after initial successes, sustaining a career over years in a congested market has its difficulties. The Iranian artists who attended the shortlisting phase had the chance to visit Dubai Art Fair 2015, which (metaphorically at least) towered over us, offering startling evidence of the global presence that young artists are seeking to encounter.

If this was not enough, Iran presents a hugely complicated case in and of itself.

It is both currently closed to the west and yet incredibly prolific in terms of art production and support outside the country. There is a disparity between the internal and external availability of financial, practical and moral support for art produced in Iran. The very presence of such diverse markets and institutional support of the contemporary Iranian artists outside the country, it seems to us, is remarkable. Such help is perhaps unprecedented in the Middle East context where support for ‘Arab’ artists is not concentrated on any given country. These determining factors certainly infused our conversations and we learned much from each other and from those around us as we did our work.

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We should remember the process that being on a MOP CAP jury involves. We inherit the not inconsiderable work of the Selection Committee – Shiva Balaghi, Hamid Keshmirshekan and Sohrab Mohebbi - who generated a shortlist of twenty artists from around 250. In this sense, all the short-listed artists selected to exhibit in Dubai were already winners, given the number of initial entrants. Our preparation for the shortlisting meant looking closely at online statements, videos, and links to other works by the artists. Then we went to Dubai in March 2015 to view the exhibition first-hand and create our list of finalists for London in October 2015.

As we noted above, we had never worked together and although some of our paths had crossed in previous work, no one knew everyone else prior to judging.

We therefore have to say that the chemistry of the panel was a surprise and delight for us all (especially for those who have been involved in much less enjoyable jury work!) Such a welcome mix of complementarity, engaged dialogue and humour certainly cannot be assumed in judging contemporary art.

Exploring the work in the exhibition involved seeing work by artists we previously did not know. As one would expect, there was a wide range of approaches on display, including the works of Abdolreza Aminlari, Azi Amiri, Pendar Nabipour, Mahdieh Pazoki, Farnaz Rabieijah, Hamed Rashtian, Peyman Shafieezadeh, Alma Sinai, Sona Safaei-Sooreh, Siavash Talaei, Pezhman Zahed and Mohsen Zare. We had luxurious conditions - a newly built Jumeirah Beach villa - in which to discuss the artworks openly and in depth, as we grew into an engaged and enthusiastic team. In the end, we selected our eight finalists: Negar Jahanbakhsh, Amirnasr Kamgooyan, Nader Koochaki, Shahrzad Malekian, Nafise Mighani, Hani Najm, Mamali Shafahi and Melika Shafahi.

At all stages, our on-site MOP staff, volunteers and supporters showed us great generosity, warmth and commitment. Our work in Dubai ended with a wonderful evening announcing the finalists at a grand opening reception that was hosted by Asal Sobati, a MOP trustee, and inaugurated formally by HE Sheikh Nahayan bin Mubarak Al Nahayan, UAE’s Minister of Culture, Youth and Social Development.

This opening night was made even more memorable in that we were able to meet some of the shortlisted artists who had managed to be in Dubai for the event

As we approach October’s finalist exhibition, the winner is obviously not known to us. We do however know what will be offered to her or him. A one-year mentorship (so valuable in the congested global art world we wrote of above); a solo project in a leading London art space (equally valuable given London’s dominant global position in contemporary art); a residency at Delfina; in other words, the offer of time to develop new work from this substantial base and the chance to exploit the great opportunity the prize gives.

In thinking about some of the qualities and themes in the work that we warmly responded to, we would say that authenticity was high up (and will be again when we reconvene in London). To see artists draw on personal impetus, listening to their own inner prompts with intensity and complexity is something to welcome.

We saw richness of source material, sometimes treated with a kind of lightness or playfulness, at other times capturing vulnerability and poetry – at best always with the requisite degree of craft and understanding of the materiality of their work. And of course we saw young artists’ awareness of global art trends whether in homage or in a spirit of independence.

It is always anathema to judge one artist’s work against another. So as a panel of judges, we wish all the artists, both the short-listed and the finalists, well in their future careers. We wish MOP Foundation, including all of its supporters and partners, prosperity and success in its many endeavours and thank them again for the honour of becoming part of an extraordinary process dedicated to helping emerging Iranian artists.

Jananne Al-Ani Sussan Babaie Matthew Collings Andrew Patrizio

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FIN A LISTS

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Negar Jahanbakhsh Amirnasr Kamgooyan

Nafise Mighani Hani Najm

Nader Koochaki

Mamali Shafahi

Shahrzad Malekian

Melika Shafahi

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Negar Jahanbakhsh B. 1986

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Negar Jahanbakhsh

EDUCATION

M.A. of Science in painting, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, 2014 B.A. Painting, Alzahra Art University, 2008 Graphic Design Diploma, Modarres Art School, 2003

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

Tarahan - Tarahan, Azad Art Gallery, 2013

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

MOP CAP Shortlist Exhibition, 2015 Shadows: Vol 5, Saye Art Gallery, 2015 Shadows: Vol 4, Saye Art Gallery, 2015 Shadows: Vol.3, Saye Art Gallery, 2014 Versus, Iranian Artists Forum, 2014 The Doll Behind The Curtain, Shilla Art Gallery, 2012 Cutting Edge Artists, Mellat Art Gallery, 2011 Selected of New Generation, Homa Art Gallery, Mellat Art Gallery, 2010 Note, Azad Art Gallery, 2010

PRIZES

Afshin Pirhashemi Prize

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Negar Jahanbakhsh

Father, Son, Holy sprit from the ‘In Search Of Lost Time’ series Many years ago I read an interview with Houshang Golshiri, where he was asked: “Why do you write?” He answered: “For many reasons, sometimes I write to know whether I am in love or not. Once it happened, I was witness to a relationship. I came back home and wrote the first chapter of my book. Then from the musical sense, I had to listen to it. I listened and then realised that he was in love, he was desperately in love. Thus I write to see if I am in love or not.

There are times that one is not aware of his standing in society. Several years after the Islamic revolution, around 1980-81, I had no idea what was going on. I had returned to Isfahan and was working as a teacher.

Every two weeks or so I traveled to the writing association in Tehran.

I also observed what was happening in Isfahan. A friend told me a story that he had become involved in and I told him: ‘I will give you six months to sort this out’. After six months I called him and asked him whether he finished the story or not, and he answered, ‘no’. I told him that I would finish the story. I wrote it to see what happens. Sometimes I want to show the truth of Iranian people to themselves, or in other words, to show them their own demons and their inner monster.

In one of my trips I was accompanied by a writer friend and I realised he was a dictator, a mini dictator, and if he came to power a Hitler would rise from within him. Someone has to show this monster within.” * Maybe what I do in my painting is this; I paint to know if I am in love or not, to know my own state of mind, to know what’s going on and to show humanity’s true self. I paint to record history.

Detail: Father, Son, HolySprit from the ‘In Search Of Lost Time’ series 2015 Acrylic on canvas 150 x 300 cm

It is not just a registry or documentation of reality or incident for me, it is analysing every layer of the tale and its meaning, the kind that goes beyond every detail that led to the event and covers every facet of the truth. * ‘The Inner Monster’ , A conversation between Mitra Schojaei and Houshang Golshiri, September 2000

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Negar Jahanbakhsh

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Negar Jahanbakhsh Detail: Father, Son, Holy Sprit from the ‘In Search Of Lost Time’ series 2015 Acrylic on canvas 150 x 300 cm

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Amirnasr Kamgooyan B. 1982

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Amirnasr Kamgooyan

EDUCATION

B.A. Graphic Design, Shiraz Soure University, 2005

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

To 13 Hertz, Shirin Gallery, Tehran, 2014 Capturing Friction, Shirin Gallery, Tehran, 2012

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

Tehran Virtual or Real, Aaran Gallery, Tehran, 2015 MOP CAP Shortlist Exhibition, Dubai, 2015 Zoo, curated by Iman Safaie, Shirin Gallery, Tehran, 2014 Non Hated Movement, curated by Aidin Xankeshipour, Day Gallery, Tehran, 2014 Black gold, curated by Vida Zaeim & Leila Varasteh, Shirin Gallery, Tehran, 2014 Inversion, curated by Aidin Xankeshipour, Dastan’s Basment, Tehran, 2013 Corrosion, curated by Aidin Xankeshipour, Shirin Gallery, Tehran, 2013 Igreg Gallery, Tehran, 2013 Drawing week 1, Homa Gallery, Tehran, 2013 Video Show (Limited Access4), curated by Amirali Ghasemi, Aran Gallery, Tehran, 2013 Video Show, curated by Amir Rad, East Gallery, Tehran, 2013 Museum of Contemporary Art, curated by Hamzeh Farhadi, Ahvaz, 2012 Inanimate life, Seyhoun Gallery, Tehran, 2012 Participant in Final Encore Project, Tehran, 2012 Iranian Artists State Capitol, California, 2012 Drawing for Drawing, Arte gallery, Tehran, 2012

ART FAIRS

Context Art Miami (Scope), Shirin Gallery, 2014 London Fair, Shirin Gallery, 2014 Vienna Fair, Shirin Gallery, 2013 Miami Beach Art Fair (Scope), Shirin Gallery, 2013 Basel Art Fair (Scope), Shirin Gallery, 2013

AUCTIONS

Tehran Auction, Azadi Hotel, Tehran, 2014 Young Collectors Auction, Ayyam Gallery, Dubai, 2013

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Amirnasr Kamgooyan Detail: Time Capsule Series, [Episode One] 2015 Drawing on transparent laminate, painted iron, lens, wood, electric equipment, cardboard, leather, fabric, aluminium Installation dimensions 175 x 220cm Edition of 3

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Amirnasr Kamgooyan

Time Capsule Series, [Episode One] 2015 Drawing on transparent laminate, painted iron, lens, wood, electric equipment, cardboard, leather, fabric, aluminium Installation dimensions 175 x 220cm Edition of 3 “Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new?’ It has been already in the ages before us.” Ecclesiastes 1:10 We shouldn’t ignore the power of denial. Schlegel wrote, “Nobody ever painted so truthfully as [Shakespeare] has done the facility of selfdeception, the half self-conscious hypocrisy towards ourselves, with which even noble minds attempt to disguise the almost inevitable influence of selfish motives in human nature.”* The human mind has a fantastic capacity for self-deception. It is easy for us to deny—man has a natural tendency towards inversion. Projecting his inherent vice, he imagines himself in the safe position of an innocent, and points his finger to others. What begins as a joke, turns to a lie, and one lie leads to more lies, and before long, some truth is turned on its head. Man wakes up one morning, finding himself in the middle of a road, far off from the truth. A way he has chosen, supposedly “In his right mind.” For many, total oblivion might be a good way out. For a few, who still hope to return, a reminder might awaken in them a sense of longing that, through self-disclosure, there must be a path to the truth.

Considering reality, it would appear that things are happening by chance. Chance is, by definition, something that has no discernable or observable cause. But this is only the surface. The mystery that lies beyond is what fascinates me. The scientific attempt to discover this mystery, leads to more mystery, which makes it even more exciting—I am intrigued by this mystery, the continuation of which guarantees the fascination. If the parts of a work are put on the border of connection and disconnection—to itself and others—a constant oscillation will occur. This will make an in-between zone, which is the juxtaposition of the finite and the infinite, chance and determination, the concrete and the abstract; the perception of which is up to the viewer’s imagination.

The present work is a continuation of my earlier series, and deals with the same questions. During the process of preparing this work, however, I took an interest in certain traditions of scientific illustration, and consequently, I started collecting scientific books from the past centuries and studying their illustrations. A scientific illustrator is capable of depicting the outside and the inside simultaneously, and even reconstructing the forgotten points as curious and meticulous details. Therefore, scientific illustrations, unlike photography, can be unrealistic.

The work is consists of two parts: 1. A cone-shaped, wall-mounted volume; 2. Three book-like volumes on a shelf. The cone-shaped volume is inspired by Dante’s Inferno, only here it is inverted.

Dante’s hell is a giant cone, with its apex in the middle of the earth.

It consists of nine circles of suffering. When the viewer looks into my inverted cone, he/she sees an illuminated picture (an illusion?), and he/she becomes a part of the work, just as a reader might identify with various inhabitants of hell after visiting their circles, becoming a companion to the pilgrim and Virgil in their journey. And finally the books complete the equation. The books with magnifying glasses are symbolic: although the internet is offering the fastest way to information, something precious seems to be lost, i.e. profundity.

Modern man is like someone on a jet ski, zipping along on the surface of the water, quenching his thirst for excitement. Before that, however, we used to dive into the deep waters, in search of pearls of great value. * August Wilhelm Schlegel, Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, translated by John Black .

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Amirnasr Kamgooyan

Time Capsule Series, [Episode One] 2015 Drawing on transparent laminate, painted iron, lens, wood, electric equipment, cardboard, leather, fabric, aluminium Installation dimensions 175 x 220cm Edition of 3

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Amirnasr Kamgooyan

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Nader Koochaki B. 1982

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Nader Koochaki

EDUCATION

Expert in Indian and Iranian Languages and Cultures, Salamanca University, 2013 Sociology, Universidad del Pais Vasco, 2006

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

Nader Koochaki, Usurbe Theatre, Beasain Argazki Erakusketa, Egia Culture Centre, Donostia, 2011 XXXXX, Paraninfo of the UPV, Bilbao, 2011 Violence, Repetition, Archives from the historical territory of Alava, Gasteiz, 2010

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

Besides, Tabakalera, Donostia, 2015 MOP CAP 2015 Shortlist Exhibition, Dubai, 2015 First Thought Best, Artium, Gasteiz, 2014 Allan Kaprow, Other Ways, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, 2014 Scènes, Médiathèque de Biarritz, Biarritz, 2012 Scènes, Musée Basque et de l’historie de Bayonne, Bayonne, 2011 ZoOo, THE WILD WORLD, Cristina Enea Fundation, Donostia, 2010 Interactivos? ‘09, Arteleku, Donostia, 2009

SCOLARSHIPS & PRIZES

Etxepare Basque Institute, Artist in Residence Scholarship, Paradise PRICES Center, Iran, 2014 Basque Government, Scholarship for artistic production, 2013 Basque Cultural Institute, Hogeita Visual Arts Prize, 2011 Eremuak, Cultural Department of the Basque Government, 2010 V Goiart Visual Arts Prize, Council of Ordizia, 2010 Hugoenea, Residency in writer’s house, Basque Writers Association, 2010 Basque Government, Scholarship for artistic production, 2009 Interactivos? ’09, Selected project, Arteleku, 2009 ID+Consonni Sondika 09, special mention, 2009 Koldo Mitxelena, Schollarship for artistic production, Council of Guipuzcoa, 2008 XX Gordexolako Harana Prize, Tales Competition, 2008 XI Jautarkol Prize, Poetry competition, 2008 Research scholarship Jouth Basque Observatory, 2006 Collaborationgrant, Department No. II of Sociology UPV, 2005

*Profile picture (p. 6) courtesy of Kimia Kamvari.

WORKSHOPS & CONCERTS

Closed Circuit, Club le Larraskito, Bilbao, 2013 Dorsal Landscape, Bulegoa z/b, Bilbao, 2013

PUBLICATIONS & TALKS

Retalbo Minero, Castillete, Mining Tableau (Landscape in Motion I), MUSAC, 2012 Cerklje na Gorenjskem, (35min), Documentary, 2011 Dorsal Landscape, Zehar n°67, Arteleku, 2010 About shepherding representation, V Congress about Trashumacy Studies, Teruel, 2010 Initiation rituals for making sociology, Basque Sociology Magazine n° 43, 2007 Approach to the squat movement through a basque written sociology, VIII Basque Sociology and Science Congress, Bilbao, 2007

ASSISTANT / COLLABORATION

Arrieta / Vazquez, Bajada, Galeria Estrany de la Mota, 2015 Arrieta / Vazquez, Eight or Ten, Six or Seven Wolves, Joan Miro Foundation, 2012-2013 Carme Nogueira, Castillete, Retablo Minero, MUSAC, 2012 Ibon Aranberri, La trama rururbana, CEGAC, 2009 Ibon Aranberri, Disorder, Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2008 Ibon Aranberri, Ir. Tn°510, The Cave, 2008

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Halgheye Asphalt - Asphalt Roll is a way of looking

to the photographic language and the city of Tehran. Photographs are the pillar of the work, and as movement is its main theme, a cinematic behaviour can be found within it.

An attempt to deal with the factors of gaze and movement is present in the work. These factors could be translated into the use of space and rhythm. In summary, the rocking between record and design, the space that we could call: research.

Two systems have been constructed for the exhibition; the two of them come from photographic devices. Images are shown on and in them.

The assembly turns into a crossroad, images are to-ing and fro-ing, the wheels keep rolling.

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Nader Koochaki Asphalt Roll 2015 5 Tables Iron, steel, wood 190 x 70 x 125cm

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Asphalt Roll 2015 B & W photograps Variable dimensions

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Shahrzad Malekian B. 1983

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Sharzad Malekian

EDUCATION

B.S. in Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Tehran University, Iran, 2001-2006 B.F.A in Sculpting from Art University Tehran, Iran, 2007-2011

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

MOP CAP 2015 Shortlist Exhibition, Dubai, 2015 Nietzsche was a man, video program, Pori Art Museum, Finland, 2015 The 4th Biennal of Urban Sculpture, Tehran Sculpture Activities Center, Barg Gallery, Tehran 2014 SALVATION GHAZA, Installation, Event, Niavaran Cultural Center, Tehran, 2014 Nietzsche was a man, video program, Malmö Konsthall, Malmö, 2014 Reversed City, Urban Installation, Tehran, 2014 Invisible present Tense, video program, 10th Beijing Independent Film Festival, Beijing, 2013 Group Exhibition, Sculpture students that have graduated from the Art University, Iranian Artists’ Forum, Tehran, 2013 Nietzsche was a man, video program, FONLAD, Digital Art Festival Coimbra, Portugal, 2013 Nietzsche was a man, video program, Museo Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Mexico City, 2013 Rotation: Iranian Videos, co-curated by Shahrzad Malekian, Parkingallery archive, Swiss Ambassador`s Residence, Tehran, 2013 Invisible present Tense: Video program, 36th Göteborg International Film Festival, Göteborg, 2013 Invisible present Tense: Video program, 42nd International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, 2013 Limited Access IV, Aaran Art Gallery, Tehran, 2013 A Man, Aun Gallery, Tehran, 2012 Video-therapy, Session One: Recovery, Stueben Gallery, Pratt Institute, New York, 2012 The Invisible Present, Artists’ Television Access, San Francisco, 2012 The Invisible Present, video section of ‘The Iranian Pulse’, Sao Paulo, 2012 It’s Normal!, Villa Kuriosum, Berlin, 2012 Human from the Contemporary Viewpoint, Fravahr Gallery, Tehran, 2012 Unanimously Condemned: Video Art & Performance Documentary from Iran, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn Annual Exhibition of Iranian Sculpture Forum, Iranian Artists’ Forum, Tehran, 2011 Exhibition of 3 Generations of Iranian Sculpture No. 2, Fravahr Gallery, Tehran, 2011 Group Sculpture Exhibition, Café Gallery, Iranian Artists’ Forum, Tehran, 2010

PARTICIPATION

Goteborg Film Festival: Signals, Inside Iran, 2013 Rotterdam Film Festival: Signals, Inside Iran, 2013 The 3rd Biennial of Urban Sculpture, Tehran, 2012 The First Mural Art and Urban Design Biennial, Tehran, 2012

PUBLICATIONS & TRANSLATIONS

Short Review on Group Exhibition: Black or White, Iranian Artists in Italy, Art Tomorrow, Vol. 1, 2010 Art Around the World, review on major international art exhibitions, Art Tomorrow, Vol. 2, 2010 Halim Al-Karim, Aksnmeh, Contemporary Photography Quarterly, Vol. 32, 2010 “What light can Tintoreto shed on modern art at the Venice Biennial?” (translation), Jonathan Jones, Alef Bimonthly of Arts and Culture, Vol. 86, 2011 “A Simplified and Secretive Istanbul Biennial”, (translation), Susan Fowler, Alef Bimonthly of Arts and Culture, Vol. 86, 2011 Profile on Istanbul Biennial, Interview with artists, extracted from the catalogue (translation), Aksnmeh, Contemporary Photography Quarterly, Vol. 33, 2011

RESIDENCIES & AWARDS

Ateljé Stundars, Artist Residency, Finland, 2016 NKD (Nordic Artists’ Centre Dale), Artist Residency, Norway, 2015 Excellence Award for Urban Art (Urban Installation), Tehran Sculpture Activities Centre, 2014

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Mamali Shafahi

The wearable Sculptures #2 The works in this series are a continuation of the project The Wearable Sculptures. The series includes a set of objects conceived to generate a period of intimate contact with the body of their users, either the audience or the performer, who are to exhibit the mechanism that follows each object. This mechanism alludes to certain qualities of social interaction and the ways in which people are engaged in forming subject-to-subject relationships. In another sense, the action that evolves through an engagement with these objects tends to expose qualitative positions, within the contours of which, particular subjects happen to get entangled when engaged in social relations. Although such positions may apparently touch on issues with some degree of specificity, they can be expanded into situational modes of interaction in general. The Wearable Sculptures are pathologies of socialism crafted and embodied as instrumental means that go on to initiate performative moments for elaborating on the modes of socialism and the subjectivities that they bring about.

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Sharzad Malekian The Wearable Sculptures #2 Series Untitled 2015 Mixed media, electric motors and circuit 30 x 50 x 28 cm Edition of 1 + AP

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The Wearable Sculptures #2 Series Untitled 2015 Panty, hair 140 x 30 cm Edition of 1 + AP

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Nafise Mighani B. 1989

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Nafise Mighani

EDUCATION

B.A. in Photography, Faculty of Fine Art, Tehran University, 2012 Graphic Diploma, Modares Institute of Art, 2009

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Zanan-Emruz magazine, No 3, Summer 2014 Participated in Abr Jungle’s Summer Environmental Art Festival, 2014 Photography instructor for exceptional children, 2014 Photographer of Babak Etminani’s workshop, 2012 Artist for Herfe-Honarmand Magazine, Vol. 3, No 43, Fall 2012 Member of the Student Association of Photography, 2009-2012 Policy-maker, executive member & advertising director of first festival of photography Here is My Living Place, My Mental Geography, Tehran, 2011 Presentation of the weekly meeting of young photographers with: Mehrdad Afsari, Najaf Shokri, Mohamad Ghazali, Ramyar Manuchehrzade, Behnam Sedighi, Reza Shojaee, Amin Ghashghaee, and Hosein Rajabi, 2010-2011 Presentation of Photography: a Middle-brow Art by Pierre Bourdieu with Naser Fakuhi Ph.D Presentation of video art workshop with Alireza Sahafzade, 2011 Presentation and review of the book The Body and the Archive by Allan Sekula, with Mehran Mohager and Alireza Sahafzade, 2011 Publishing of Cheshmak photography magazine, 2011

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Nafise Mighani

Roots I’m eager to enter the world of negligible and ordinary things. While getting out of the world within me, my search begins outside of my house in a bigger environment in which numerous worlds exist. A search to find the unseen things, a practice to see again, a more careful look that makes the invisible things visible.

This time my interest in these worlds makes me search for the hidden parts of weeds, a hidden part of the inappreciable plants. One of the main parts of the plant is hidden deep in the ground, away from all the attention. It grows like the stem and if it reaches an impervious barrier on it’s way, it won’t stop, it just goes on. I’m looking for the roots, I’m digging the ground like an archeologist, I’m trying to bring out this invisible network carefully.

I smashed the leaves, stems, flowers... And all the other parts that are commonly used to identify a plant and left the identification job to the unseen parts.

Detail: Spotted knapweed 2015 Plexiglass, glass, weed, root 23.5 x 23.5 cm Edition of 1

Here the appearance is laid aside, making way for the roots to be seen.

This displacement gives them an opportunity to show their journey through ages under the ground.

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Nafise Mighani Sisymbrium irio ‫خاکشیر‬ 2015 Plexiglass, glass, weed, root 23.5 x 21.5 cm Edition of 1

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Nafise Mighani Achillea ‫بومادران‬ 2015 Plexiglass, glass, weed, root 25.5 x 37.5 cm Edition of 1

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Hani Najm B. 1989

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Hani Najm

EDUCATION B.A in Graphics

BIOGRAPHY

Permanent member of Iranian painters Member of Kids and Adolescent Book Illustrators Association MOP CAP 2015 Shortlist, 2013 One of five chosen in the Professional Section, Best From the Disposable Festival Artist’s House, Winter 2012 Second prize, Shamse Festival, Drawing Section, 2012 Selected in 5th Art of the Youth Festival, drawing section, Saba Museum, 2010 Laurete of Iran’s Second Contemporary Drawing Festival held at the Imam Ali Museum, 2009 Selected in the 9th Contemporary Drawing Festival, Atashzad Gallery, 2009 The first New Art National Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art in Ahwaz Chosen in the Festival of Drawing, Persbookart Participation in many individual and group exhibitions

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Hani Najm

In the name of the creator

Thought Casting Factories Yes, you’ve read it right. If I’m not wrong, probably from the beginning of the first human civilisations, these factories were made with all of their borderlines, distinctions, totems and taboos.

Of course with a lower production rate than the thought-making factories of the present time. We should search for the largest of them in the 20th and 21st centuries; from the time that human civilisation reached a power of the modern mass-media and its propaganda.

Ranging from families, schools, books and scholars to press, radio, television, satellite, internet tools, stock brokers and consumers of this huge casting factory, absolutely and exclusively are in the hands of hegemonic tycoons.

After all, what cast? Which tin can?

It’s a fact that each human’s brain is placed stably in their skull, but the vastness of the human mind is surely limitless.

Is it true that this limitlessness, this natural freedom of the human mind is dangerous. Cast into tiny tin cans and depending on each kind of brain, those cans are made to fit?

Then these minds fit in the casts that the honorable owners of castmaking factories and their think-tanks decide for them.

The casts and tins that are tight and solid with shut doors affecting our entire existence, direct our perceptions of life and create unnatural straits of freedom, in which sometimes there is not even a small hole for a brief peek.

And this very suck-in-the-can human being, causes events in all corners of the poor scandalous earth that makes one cry from the depths of one’s heart, and it makes one tremble and frown: stones people to death, pours acid on people’s faces, kills dogs with excruciating pain, burns holy Quran and shows savage reactions in response to prophet Muhammad cartoons, makes nuclear bombs and throws it on innocent people, assassinates and commits suicidal attacks, commences wars, be-heads, turns into vain radical nationalists and loyal soldiers of world class thugs… and all these are auspicious products of huge casting factories of their highnesses! Do you reckon the countless profits!!!

These rigid plastic casts which will survive for centuries!

This has been a source of inspiration for me for roughly eight years of gathering used containers. These containers are becoming increasingly abundant in my country of Iran and so many other countries as well, polluting our environment; Plastic casts with potentially harmful materials and long lives (over 300 to 500 years) just aggregating environmental pollution and disturbance.

The cast’s shapes aren’t always the same; they include cheese containers, glass bottles and CDs/DVDs (as data containers). All of these containers can be intentionally hazardous and critical from an artistic point of view, so I made up my mind and applied glass bottles and plastic CDs in my visual crafts to demonstrate my great concern with various patterns of human features in deformed, basic and somehow horrible shapes.

And this is man’s story… better to put it; tragedy, and a history that is too human. My intention was to illustrate this entire story on shattered canvases made of cheese containers via transferring from pure jubilant colours to cold soulless colours. Moving away from purity of nature and human life towards negative excruciating emotions like fear, anxiety and disturbance, which are all a result of uncanny tight casts, because of a congestion of the universe of the human mind. Humans are simultaneously devastating themselves and their environment; humans that again in the repeating circle of history turn into the tickets for their highnesses: owners of mind casting factories for passing the gates of their arrogant ambitions. Those tickets never pass the gate themselves instead they are thrown directly to the trash bin of the history of the populace!

By the way ladies and gentlemen, did you actually fathom how vast is your sky?

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Detail: Thought Casting Factories 2015 Mixed media, oil & acrylic, 64 glass bottles, plastic cheese containers, plastic ice cream containers, 300 CDs Dimensions variable

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Hani Najm Detail: Thought Casting Factories 2015 Mixed media, oil & acrylic, 64 glass bottles, plastic cheese containers, plastic ice cream containers, 300 CDs Dimensions variable

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Detail: Thought Casting Factories 2015 Mixed media, oil & acrylic, 64 glass bottles, plastic cheese containers, plastic ice cream containers, 300 CDs Dimensions variable

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Mamali Shafahi B. 1982

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Mamali Shafahi

EDUCATION

Photography, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, France

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

Broken SD, video installation, Dastan’s Basement Gallery, Tehran, 2014 Daddy Sperm, video installation, Galerie Nicolas Silin, Paris, 2013 Occidental Icons, painting exhibition, Galerie Nicolas Silin, Paris, 2012 Wonderland (2,500 years celebration), video installation, Galerie Nicolas Silin, Paris, 2010 Mamali and his doves in art?! Installation, Aaran Gallery, Tehran, 2009 Blonde descending a staircase, video performance, Urban Jalousie Biennial, Istanbul and Berlin, 2008 Freedom, performance with Behrouz Rae, Art Athina Contemporary Art Fair, Athens, 2008 Everybody needs a show, performance series, ENSA Paris-Cergy Art School, France, 2007 Light boxes, Wochdom Gallery, Paris, 2007 In search of stolen Jesus, video installation, Limoges, 2006 My Magic Box, exhibition of light boxes, Tarahan Azad Gallery, Tehran, 2005

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

Centrefold, curated by Reza Aramesh, Sazmanab, Tehran, 2015 Only for export, Shulamit Gallery, Los Angeles, 2014 Dixit, Galerie Nicolas Silin, Paris, 2013 Iranian Arts Now, Cité internationale des Arts, Paris, 2012 Good city for dreamers, curator and exhibitor, Galerie Nicolas Silin, Paris, 2011 Carte Blanche, With his multiple reflections he feels secure, Art Video Film Festival, Cannes, 2011 I. U. (Heart), Curator and exhibitor, The Third Line, Dubai, 2010 Collection Dubai, SMART Project Space, Amsterdam, 2009 Ashura, Aaran gallery, Tehran, 2009 Everybody needs a show, Photographic installation, Lion under the Rainbow, Athens, 2008 SLICK ART FAIR, Focus Gallery, Paris, 2007 Radical Drawing II, Tehran Gallery, Tehran, 2007 Karaoke Poetry, Performance with Alexandros Georgiou, parallel project of Athens Biennial, Athens, 2007 Eraser Head, 9th Biennial of Tehran, 2004 Karaoke Poetry, Performance with Alexandros Georgiou, parallel project of Athens biennial, Athens, Greece, 2007 Eraser Head, 9th biennial of Tehran, Iran, 2004

PRESS AND PUBLICATIONS

Contemporary Iranian Art, Talinn Grigor, Reaktion Books Ltd., London, 2014 Contemporary Iranian Art: New Perspectives, Hamid Keshmirshekan, Saqi Books, London, 2013 BROWNBOOK magazine, No.92, I.U.Heart, p.87, 2010 Artasiapacific magazine, No.71, I.U.Heart, p.133, 2010 Timeout magazine, I.U.Heart, p.23, 2010 “Different Sames: New Perspectives in Contemporary Iranian Art”, by Hossein Amirsadeghi, Thames & Hudson, 2009 Mother Magazine, No.5, Spring, “Mamali needs a show”, p.120-121, 2008 Highlight Magazine, No.34, May, “Lion under the rainbow”, p.88-91, 2008

OTHERs

MOP CAP 2015 Finalist MOP CAP 2011 Shortlist MOP CAP 2009 Shortlist “Thirty Years On: The Social and Cultural Impacts of the Iranian Revolution”, conference, SOAS, University of London Guest speaker, “Art and the representation of masculinity” 2009 UNESCO, Aschberg Bursaries for Artists 2009 Winner, 2008

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Mamali Shafahi

Maybe/Public Love is a 15-minute video that will

eventually form the second part of Mamali Shafahi’s full-length film Nature Morte, the final stage in the long-term project Daddy Sperm .

As in the previous Daddy Sperm video installations, Maybe/Public Love projects the artist’s parents into an imaginary world that at once pays homage to them, as his genitors, and brings them closer to his own.

The video starts with Shafahi’s father, Reza Shafahi, drawing an anonymous character and a cow. By combining selected sounds and music – pieces by Mount Kimbie and Jam Rostron, used here both as a source of inspiration and as an artist’s medium - with 3D imagery, the video develops these as elements in a rich assembly of references.

While in previous videos, Shafahi’s parents remained relatively passive “objects” (as do the 3D cows in the initial Maybe section of the video), here, after the quiet start, Shafahi confers on them a livelier, more proactive and possibly surprising role.

Within a general framework of reference to the broad Daddy Sperm themes of birth and creation; transmission from parents to children and, conversely, the transformation of parents by their children; life, passing time and death, the video also evokes more specific questions that have run through Shafahi’s work over the past decade: sex, taboo and the breaking of taboo, private and public identity, gender, etc.

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Mamali Shafahi Detail: Maybe/ Public Love 2015 Video installation Edition of 3 + AP

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Detail: Maybe/ Public Love 2015 Video installation Edition of 3 + AP

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Mamali Shafahi Detail: Maybe/ Public Love 2015 Video installation Edition of 3 + AP

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Melika Shafahi B. 1984

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Melika Shafahi

EDUCATION

M.A. Fine Art, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, 2012 B.A. Fine Art, École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Montpellier, 2010 B.A. in Photography, Arts University of Tehran, Iran 2007

SOLO EXHIBITIONs

Residence, photography, Bagneres de Bigorre, 2014 Tehran project & Emperor’s new clothes, Rira Gallery, Dubai, 2012 Snowwhite, Igreg Gallery, Tehran, 2011 Autoportrait, photography and installation, Gallery de l’ESBAM, Montpellier, 2010 1001 nights, private show, Tehran, 2009 Tehran’s project, Harandi Gallery, Tehran, 2008

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

The World Viewed 2, Y Art Studio, Tehran, 2015 What Are You Waiting For, Laleh June Galerie, Basel, 2015 MOP CAP 2015 Shortlist Exhibition, Dubai, 2015 The World Viewed 1, Y Art Studio, 2015 Les enfants du Sabbat n°14, Centre d’art contemporain Le Creux de l’Enfer, Thiers, 2013 Prix ICART, Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris, 2012 A Men, Aun Gallery, Tehran, 2013 On the other side of the mirror, le cadre Septembre de la photographie, Lieus, Lyon, 2012 Iranian Arts Now, Cité internationale des Arts, Paris, 2012 Respect to time, Rira Gallery, Dubai, 2012 Ciphers, tension with tradition in contemporary Iranian photography, SAW Gallery, Ottawa, 2012 Charivari ‘s FREAKS, Curiosities & Realities, performance & photo, Territorium Gallery, Berlin, 2011 Irma 6 p: m, Igreg Gallery, Tehran, 2011 The 2nd contemporary art exhibition, Sanandaj, Iran, 2011 Iran Incorporated: West beyond 51””40, Gallery Annie Gentils, Anvers, 2011 Tehran project, Chateau de la foret, Paris, 2010 June Begins May, Laleh June Galerie, Basel, 2008 Green, Mehrva Gallery, Tehran, 2006

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Beautiful People

The project Beautiful People is a visual review on the definition of beauty in Iran’s contemporary society. More specifically it studies the formation of a new narcissism associated with this beauty. Iran, with its contradictory amalgam of tradition and youthful desires, has become a land of extreme changes and imitations. Large cities are mostly under the influence of American capitalism. A considerable fraction of the young society imitates American super stars and celebrities. Iran has a world rank of 7 in cosmetic consumption and nose job operations in this country are 7 times more frequent than in the United States.

Where does this longing for being prettier come from? Is it a social problem? Searching for identity? A cultural struggle? From what direction is this narcissism targeting individuals? The prominent presence of social networks such as Facebook and Instagram are neutralising physical borders along with a new version of global consumerism, paving the road for a “prettier” display of users not only in Iran but all over the globe. Spending enough time on virtual networks, I realised that Instagram is naturally a good fit for a portrayal display. For a large number of Iranian users it is a place to re-display themselves. Selfies consist mostly of botoxed lips, Barbie shaped noses and augmented cheeks. This borderless virtual space becomes the dreamland, the utopia where every “like” fills them with ultimate happiness.

Voluptuous Attention from the ‘In Search Of Lost Time’ series 2015 Digital photography, plexiglass print 120 x 170cm Edition 1/5 + AP

I have focused on this new ever-changing generation for the last few years. Their inspiration and definition of global culture is the subject of my latest collection.

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Detail: Beautiful People 2015 Image projection 200 x 200cm

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Melika Shafahi Beautiful People 2015 Image projection 200 x 200cm

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JUDGING PANEL

JUDGING PANEL Jananne Al-Ani

is a London based Iraqi-born artist. She studied Fine Art at the Byam Shaw School of Art and graduated with an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art. She is currently Senior Research Fellow at the University of the Arts London.

Recent solo exhibitions include Excavations, Hayward Gallery Project Space, London (2014); Groundwork, Beirut Art Center (2013) and Shadow Sites, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington DC (2012). Group exhibitions include Mom, am I Barbarian? 13th Istanbul Biennial (2013); Re:emerge Towards a New Cultural Cartography, Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013); all our relations, 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012) and The Future of a Promise, 54th Venice Biennale (2011).

Recipient of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize (2011), her work can be found in the collections of the Tate Gallery and Imperial War Museum, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo and Darat al Funun, Amman.

Image courtesy of Nour-Eddine El Ghoumari

Dr. Sussan Babaie

joined The Courtauld Institute of Art in 2013 to take up a newly established post teaching on the arts of Iran and Islam. Born in Iran, she attended the University of Tehran’s Faculty of Fine Arts (Graphic Design) until the revolution of 1979 when she moved to the USA where she received her Master’s degree in Italian Renaissance and American Arts, followed by her PhD at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, where she focused on the arts of Islam. She has taught at Smith College and the University of Michigan in America, and as the Allianz Visiting Professor at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. Her publications include “Persian kingship and architecture: Strategies of power in Iran from the Achaemenids to the Pahlavis” (2015), “Shirin Neshat” (2013), and “Slaves of the Shah: New Elites of Safavid Iran” (2004). She is the author of the award-winning “Isfahan and its Palaces: Statecraft, Shi‘ism and the Architecture of Conviviality in Early Modern Iran” (2008).z

Matthew Collings

is an artist and art writer. His collaborative abstract paintings, based on patterns and done in partnership with the mosaicist, Emma Biggs, are exhibited at Vigo, in London, and are in collections worldwide.

Together with they have curated several exhibitions, including a show of Picasso’s late works at Helley Nahmad, London, in 2007, which premiered the same year at the Basel Art Fair.

He has written and presented many successful TV series on art of different periods, ranging from the Renaissance to contemporary, and broadcast on the UK’s BBC TV and Channel 4. His six-part series This Is Modern Art, won many awards, including a Bafta. Between 1997 and 2005 he presented the annual, live Channel 4 TV programme on the Turner Prize. His documentary about abstract art from Hilma Af Klint to El Anatsui, entitled The Rules of Abstraction, was broadcast by the BBC in 2014. He is the author of many books on art.

Prof. Andrew Patrizio

(Chair of the Judging Panel) is professor of Scottish Visual Culture in Edinburgh College of Art (University of Edinburgh).

His art historical work include the books “Contemporary Sculpture in Scotland”, “Stefan Gec and Anatomy Acts” (winner of UK Medical Book of the Year 2007). He has published with New Formations, The National Galleries of Scotland, The Scottish Society of Art History Journal, Architecture and Culture and Antennae. As a curator he worked at Glasgow Museums and Hayward Gallery, London. He has made exhibitions with Alan Davie, Ilana Halperin, Christine Borland, the Llubljana Print Biennale and Giuseppe Penone, among many others.

He is currently a member of the Edinburgh Environmental Humanities Network and a Trustee of the Little Sparta Trust (Ian Hamilton Finlay).

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SELECTION COMMITTEE

Shiva Balaghi

is a cultural historian of the modern Middle East, who teaches History and Art History at Brown University. She has published widely on Iranian visual culture and contemporary art of the Middle East more generally. Her books include “Saddam Hussein: A Biography”, which includes a discussion on art under Saddam; “Picturing Iran: Art, Society and Revolution” (co-edited; 2004); and “Reconstructing Gender in the Middle East” (co-edited, 1994). She is a Contributing Editor of Jadaliyya and a Trustee of the American Institute of Iranian Studies. During Fall Semester 2014, she is on leave from Brown and is serving as a curatorial consultant at Leila Heller Gallery in New York City.

Dr. Hamid Keshmirshekan

is a research associate at LMEI, SOAS, University of London. He has been the Academic Fellow in the History of Art Department, Oxford University, and editorin-chief of the bilingual (English–Persian) quarterly, Art Tomorrow. From 2004 to 2012, he was the Associate Fellow at the Khalili Research Centre, Oxford University while holding history of art professorship at the Iranian Academy of the Arts. He received his PhD in history of art from SOAS, University of London, and was awarded post-doctoral fellowships by the Barakat Trust in 2004–05 and the British Academy, AHRC and ESRC in 2008 – both at Oxford University. His current research is on twentieth and twentieth-firstcentury art from the Islamic world, with a particular focus on recent developments in art practice and its relation to its context. He has taught art history and criticism in British and Iranian universities and has organised several international conferences and events on aspects of modern and contemporary Iranian and Middle Eastern art, and has contributed extensively to various publications.

Sohrab Mohebbi

is a curator and writer currently based in Los Angeles. Mohebbi is the recipient of 2010 Montehermoso research grant 2012 recipient of Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Program for the blog Presence Documents. His writings have been published in Bidoun Magazine, where he is a contributing editor, as well as e-flux journal, Artforum, Art Agenda, Modern Painters, among others. Mohebbi was the 2010 curatorial fellow at Queens Museum of Art, New York. He is the assistant curator at REDCAT, Los Angeles. Together with Rush Estevez, he received the 2013 The Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award for the upcoming exhibition Hotel Theory.

He holds an MA in curatorial studies from Bard College and BFA in photography from Tehran Art University.

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Acknowledgements Jananne Al-Ani Alborz Art Development Parul Arya Dr. Sussan Babaie Fari Bradley Richard Braine Cyber Photographer Edge Of Arabia Projects Shiva Balaghi Matthew Collings Crown Fine Art Generation Computer Systems Ltd Hafez Restaurant Haadi Javadi Dr. Hamid Keshmirshekan

Mariam M Hassan Michael Michael Sohrab Mohebbi Bijan Moosavi Colin Morris Morris Associates Arash Namini Prof. Andrew Patrizio Print Pro Graphic Media Resonace FM Shadi Rezaei Imogen Ware Moh Yarand Farshid Ziafat

MOP Foundation would like to acknowledge the tireless support of all of those without whose help the MOP CAP Finalist Exhibition would not have been possible.

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Trustees Sara Ameri - Trustee Shirley Elghanian - Founder & Director Shirin Elghanayan - Secretary of the Board of Trustees Asal Sobati - Trustee Vajihe Soleymani - Treasurer of the Board of Trustees

Committee

Index

Page

Darya Alikhani - Project Administrator Shirley Elghanian - Founder & Director Fereshte Moosavi - Art Director & Curator Alexandra Terry - Curator & Art Director Sharareh Naghibi - Bookkeeper/Treasurer

Introduction Forward Negar Jahanbakhsh Amirnasr Kamgooyan Nader Koochaki Shahrzad Malekian Nafise Mighani Hani Najm Mamali Shafahi Melika Shafahi Judging Panel Selection Committee

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Catalogue Design Shadi Rezaei MA fine art shadi.r.art@gmail.com

Printed by Print Pro Graphic Media www.printpromedia.com

16A Lowndes Square London, SW1X 9HB, UK +44 (0) 207 235 8026 www.mopfoundation.com

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