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She saw the IRI come to power in 1979, and she faced the most brutal administration of their laws as they cemented their control of the country. Like whatever was me about me was trying to be eradicated,” says Lily Moayeri, an Iranian-American music journalist, over Zoom from Los Angeles. The IRI doesn’t want artists to have a future, and they especially don’t want women to have a future. The emphasis in the prior sentence belongs on the word “underground,” because it doesn’t matter whether you’re in an indie rock band or a techno DJ like Bahrani, every performance of popular music in Iran is underground because of the IRI. She was a singer and guitarist in the underground indie rock band The Finches before shifting to producing alternative electronica. Like Bahrani, Xeen has also relocated to Istanbul, but also like Bahrani, she got her start in Tehran.
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“There’s a treasure trove of artists that are waiting to blossom, and all the issues that Iran has been facing for the last 40 years have caused us all to be under the surface,” Alimagham says. Sepehr Alimagham, a first-generation American of Iranian descent, and an electronic music artist who produces under his first name, owns a record label called Shaytoon Records which, just last year, shared a compilation entitled Sounds From the Iranian Ultraverse, that consists of several Iranian-born artists including Xeen (those on the compilation who aren’t Iranian-born are in the Iranian diaspora like Alimagham). In 2018, Bahrani left his hometown of Tehran, the capital city of Iran, after 28 years to build a life as an artist.īecause in Iran, due to the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), the idea of playing headlining sets, getting visas to go on tour, and really doing anything to share one’s art (which is the core function of the artist), doesn’t exist.īut that doesn’t mean artists in Iran don’t exist. The pair are speaking via video chat from Bahrani’s current city of Istanbul. She is tracking protests both inside and beyond Iran, stressing that the Iranian authorities have arrested more than 20,000 people during the current turmoil.That’s what Niloufar Bahmanpour tells me as she translates Farsi to English for Pedram Bahrani, an Iranian-born producer who goes by the moniker Rebeat. He showed up for solidarity for women wearing shorts which is forbidden”. The independent curator and consultant Dina Nasser-Khadivi says that Yousefi has been “incredible. Yousefi, who has since been freed, told his followers on Instagram that the film was made “for the sake of our children”. He was arrested last October after releasing Baraye Farzandaneman (2022) which shows empowered women, without hijabs, battling men in a series of violent battles.
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The filmmaker Nik Yousefi in particular has meanwhile turned his ire on the state. “I think we can show all of these works in Iran, but ultimately the works need to be reviewed by the visual arts department of the Ministry of Culture.” “Many of the works were not made over the past year but one may find them more relevant today,” says Hormoz Hematian, the founding director of Dastan. One of the works by Shohreh Mehran ( Untitled, 2023), depicts young women carrying text books (in recent months there have been numerous reports of schoolgirls being poisoned with more than 1,000 individuals affected). In the Realism show, the 24 participating artists “substantiated their experiences, observations, and emotions through painterly marks and sculptural forms”, says a gallery statement.
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“The artists have asked the galleries to reopen, which crucially have tried to support them by continuing to sell their works.” Most commercial galleries have been closed for the past few months but there is “less tension” now. He says that it has been “a really hard time for the artists in Iran”. The filmmaker Mamali Shafahi, who also creates sculptures and installations, also featured in the Realism show ( The House of Bardo 02, 2023). Prices change daily, inflation is out of control and because of the sanctions, many of the material and tools we need are not even here. Things happen so fast here that it’s sometimes hard to keep up with it. “I will definitely continue to work here and make art here despite all its challenges and difficulties. Kazemi is currently showing the work What Happened? (2021) at the pop-up exhibition Realism organised by Dastan Gallery which is being held in Frieze’s No.