Art exhibition opens at Articultural Gallery in Los Angeles from November 7 to December 8. Curated by Farzad Karimi, the exhibition features works by  Seyed Alavi, Samira Alikhanzadeh, Blue Hadaegh, Taraneh Hemami, Shahram Karimi, Habib Kheradyar, Alina Mnatsakanian, Sourena Mohamadi, Shirin Neshat, Haleh Niazmand, Mahgameh Parvaneh, Hamid Rahmanian, Shideh Tami.

It has been 25 years since the Iranian revolution and the displacement of Iranians throughout the world. In this exhibition 13 Iranian artists living around the world will show their work in a symbolic gesture to bridge the gap that has been created in the past 25 years. The artists consist of two groups,  one group which is educated and have resided outside of Iran since the 1979 revolution, and the second group of artists who have been educated and remained in post-revolution Iran. In conjunction with the exhibition,  there will be screenings of films by Shirin Neshat, Blue Hadaegh and Hamid Rahmanian.

Seyed Alavi’s work is often engaged with the poetics of language and space and their power to shape reality. He makes art that is close to life, art that is available and accessible to viewers from many diverse backgrounds. He has created site-specific installations for the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, Franklin Furnace, the deSaisset Museum, the Museum of Santa Cruz County, and the University Art Museum/Cal State Long Beach. He also has worked on many publicly commissioned pieces and has been the recipient of numerous grants.

Samira Alikhanzadeh’s paintings are both poetic and haunting. She combines painting and found photographs to discover a new identity for women within Iran. She is shown regularly at the Golestan Gallery and at Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

Taraneh Hemami explores the issues of displacement, preservation, and loss, while creating personal as well as collective archives that transform cultural memory into the material world, creating a record and a documentation of a specific time, place and people.  Ms. Hemami has exhibited her work in venues such as San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Lab and SF Moma Artist's Gallery in San Francisco, Fowler Museum in UCLA, as well as A Space in Toronto, and the Sharjah Museum in UAE. Her works have been reviewed in publications including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Time , the San Jose Mercury News, Artpapers, Artweek, and Mix Magazine.

Shahram Karimi makes artwork that is influenced by Eastern traditions and the  abstract, minimal and conceptual art of the West. This combination makes his work unique with an artistic language if his own.  One of the paintings in this exhibition includes a humble portrait of Shirin Ebadi, winner of 2003 Noble Peace Prize. At his most recent exhibition at the Istanbul Biennale, he received great reviews.

Habib Kheradyar works within the extended field of painting, using tradition as a structural grid but mapping out new possibilities. He explores relationships of two with three dimensions, material and immaterial. These works interact with light. Fabric, together with its shadow, produce interference patterns -- also known as the moiré effect. As the viewers navigate around the work, movement is insinuated within it. Mr. Kheradyar has had numerous solo and group exhibitions, and his work appears in many private collections and at the LA County Museum of Art.

Sourena Mohamadi’s photographs refer to something outside the frames. That "something" might be anything the viewer finds relative to those objects. It is the way the viewer creates meaning for his photographs.

Alina Mnatsakanian’s sound installation titled “Introduction” deals with social issues and identity. Through workshops and individual contacts, a group of youth between the ages of 14-18 communicated with her and with each other and wrote introductions about themselves. Introductions were then recorded in the languages of the participants. Ten participants and 12 languages are present in this installation. Ms. Mnatsakanian recently received a grant by the California Council for Humanities.

Haleh Niazmand’s digital art titled “The Survey of Common Sense” is an art project that uses the methodology of polls to address an array of contemporary social issues. The structure of this work involves the audience’s participation as an integral part of the art, making it observational or interpretive, but it is during this participation that its purpose is revealed. The work’s general strategy calls for a re-evaluation of our judgmental rights, focusing on the uneasy and the paradoxical worldview.  Ms. Niazmand’s art has been exhibited widely in many galleries and museums, including the San Diego Museum of Art, the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, the Des Moines Art Ce! nter, A space Gallery, and the University of Arizona Art Museum.

Mahgameh Parvaneh creates beautiful and colorful photographs dealing with the subject of the  hejab (veiling). She shows regularly at the Rahe Abrisham Gallery in Tehran.

Shideh Tami’s sculptures are about disfigurement which one could interpret as pressures brought on by rigid social rules in the society she lives in. She has shown widely in her native Iran and abroad including, The National Arts Club NY, Cite International des Arts in Paris and Golestan Gallery in Tehran.

Articultural Gallery
10469 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025
310-481 9052
Gallery hours: Wednesday-Thursday 1 to 5 PM., Friday-Saturday 11 to 6 PM.