Newsha Tavakolian
dal 10/4/2013 al 10/5/2013
Segnalato da
10/4/2013
Newsha Tavakolian
Thomas Erben Gallery, New York
With her new series Look, she touches upon subjects both deeply personal and general as well as political, while further developing her own visual language.
Thomas Erben is very pleased to present the first US solo exhibition by Iranian
artist Newsha Tavakolian (b. 1981, Tehran). With her new series Look, she touches
upon subjects both deeply personal and general as well as political, while further
developing her own visual language.
Tavakolian started her career as a self-taught photojournalist at the age of 16, and
has covered wars and natural disasters, and produced photo documentaries in Iran,
Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Pakistan and Yemen. One of few female
photographers in this context, she gained international success with work published
in magazines and newspapers such as Time, Newsweek, Stern, Le Figaro, New York
Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and National Geographic.
Over the past few years, while the conditions for her photojournalistic work in Iran
became increasingly difficult, she developed several art projects - still
maintaining a largely documentary style - focusing particularly on women’s issues,
through projects such as Mother of Martyrs (2006) and The Day I Became a Woman
(2010).
Look, Tavakolian’s most recent series, consists of staged large-scale photographs in
which lone subjects are framed against a window view of high-rise buildings. All
shot at the same evening hour, the images are permeated with a cold bluish note,
giving them a richly cinematic quality. Seen together, the individual photographs
form a collective, testifying to a mood and a condition which Tavakolian describes
as follows: "Look began with my desire to look deeply into the lives of people around me whom I
have known for over ten years, and who live in my building.
I wanted to bring to
life the story of a nation of middle class youths who are constantly battling with
themselves, their isolated conformed society, their lack of hope for the future and
each of their individual stories. Over a period of six months, at 8 pm, I fixed my
camera on a tripod in front of the window where I had watched the same view of the
city for ten years. I tried to capture a moment of each of their stories, within the
frame of a window looking out onto the cold concrete buildings which surround us
daily."
Newsha Tavakolian has worked as a photographer for the Iranian press since 1997, and
internationally since 2002. She was selected for the World Press Photo Masterclass
and the National Geographic Society Award (2006, finalist in both); Magnum’s Inge
Morath Award (2008); as well as the Magic of Persia Contemporary Art Prize (2009).
Her work has been exhibited in venues such as the Chelsea Art Museum, New York
(2009); Gallery Verso, Turin, and Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, (both 2010); the
British Museum (2012); and The Victoria and Albert Museum (2013). The Fifth Pillar,
her first book, was published by Gilgamesh Publishing House in 2012. She will be
included in forthcoming exhibitions at LACMA and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Tavakolian’s photographs were first exhibited at Thomas Erben in 2010. She lives and
works in Tehran.
Reception for the artist: Thursday, April 11, 6-8:30 pm
Thomas Erben Gallery
526 West 26th Street, floor 4 New York
Tuesday - Saturday, 10 am to 6 pm
Admission free