14 April - 19 June 2005, Victoria
& AlbertMuseum 27 April - 20 May
2005, Zelda Cheatle Gallery.
Organised by:
The Iran Heritage
Foundation, the Victoria & AlbertMuseum, the Zelda Cheatle Gallery and the
Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute.
Supported by:
Arts Council.
Curated by:
Martin Barnes, Victoria & AlbertMuseum Zelda Cheatle, Zelda Cheatle
Gallery.
Introduction:
Abbas Kiarostami is renowned for his award-winning films. Less well
known is his practice of still photography sustained over 25 years. These
photography exhibitions mark the first time that Kiarostami photographs have
been exhibited in the UK.
Abbas Kiarostami observes his world closely, each medium effortlessly
glides into the next.
Snow
descends from the black clouds with the whiteness of
snow
A poem written by Kiarostami that introduces the photographs both in
the Victoria & AlbertMuseum and the Zelda Cheatle Gallery. The
photographs are all in snow. Trees in Snow. The winter landscape
of Iran visited, photographed and
revisited over many years. In the tradition of landscape photography, these are
solitary explorations which describe the factual terrain but by their very
repetition of the subject introduce subtleties and complexities which underlie
the simple image. Kiarostami is not a traditional landscape photographer, but
one whose photographic vision is part of the greater picture, a
philosophy.
Inside the
shrine I thought a thousand thoughts and when I
left it had snowed
The selection reveals the concentrated vision of the artist exploring
the single motif of trees in snow. The subject evokes an atmosphere of solitude
and aloneness. Empty foregrounds allow the viewer to enter while shadows and
snow drifts contribute to the breakdown of a sense of scale and perspective,
creating instead an intensely meditative
space.
Kiarostami's films are acclaimed partly because of the way in which
they challenge stereotypes, and their philosophical tone and poetic vision. In
his films, he often uses a fixed position in which the camera does not move and
the viewer is engaged through the untold or unexplained. Events unfold in front
of the lens. In this way, his parallel practice of still photography is linked
to his cinematic work and shares some of its aesthetic and intellectual
concerns.
The Trees in Snow series are borne out of
Kiarostami's long, solitary walks to search for film sets, sometimes covering
thousands of miles in the Iranian landscape. Photographing these landscapes
allowed him a spontaneous immersion in nature. They became the equivalent of
emotional states and the trees almost human, echoing the saying of the Islamic
mystic Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi (born 1165 died 1240): 'the tree is the sister of
man'.
Kiarostami's photographs achieve their impact without the use of
intricate lighting techniques or sophisticated equipment. He is not concerned
with studied methods of technique or printing. All the works shown at the
Victoria & AlbertMuseum and the Zelda Cheatle Gallery are
gelatin silver prints made in 2005, though the negatives were taken during the
period from 1978-2003 and are deliberately not dated more precisely within this
range by the artist.
A little patch of
snow- souvenir of a long winter in early
spring
'Contemplating the cloudy sky and the massive trunk of a tree under a
magical light is difficult when one is alone. Not being able to feel the
pleasure of seeing a magnificent landscape with someone else is a form of
torture. That is why I started taking photographs. I wanted somehow to
eternalize those moments of passion and
pain.'
