Recently, NPR ran a story about an Iranian art exhibit that debuted at the Crewest Gallery in Los Angeles, California. I find it interesting to see how the recent turmoil in Iran affects the artists of the country.
In the interview, curator Shervin Shahbazi speaks of the many pieces that should have made it to the exhibition but where stopped by Iranian customs agents. And most were held because they contained the color green and/or other political statements about the current regime in Iran.
Green happens to be the color of the opposition party that was lead by presidential hopeful Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the heavily debated election of 2009. This election lead to rioting in the streets of Tehran and conspiracies that the election was rigged by the ruling party. So it goes with out saying why the Iranian government would have a problem with the world at large getting their hands on these pieces.
The censorship of Iran is so strong, that none of the artists where able to even give their real names out of fear of retaliation by the government.
But despite the difficulties presented to these artists, many of their works still made it to LA, and are being snatched up at a very fast pace.
All images provided by the Crewest Gallery’s Flickr Page
Scream-FRZ
Gun VS Cameric-icy
Election-SOT
COLORFUL FACE-ICY
Scream - SOT
BOMB is a TOY - SOT
Peace Face - ICY
For more images from the Crewest Gallery Click Here
Throughout the works, you can see an obvious cry for change from a society that has been long oppressed. The imagery depicts the pain and suffering of people long oppressed by threats of war, religious oppression, and potential nuclear warfare and only hoping for the basic civility that many people across the world already enjoy on a day to day basis.
This comes as no surprise as the headlines this week have been dominated with reports on Iran’s missile tests, a secret uranium enrichment facility, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad down playing his opinion that the holocaust ever existed, and the UN beginning to engage in talks with Iran to resolve any potential threats of nuclear armament with the country.
Throughout time war and political upheaval has had an impact on the arts. As far back as man has been creating art, we have depicted the effects of war in our artworks.
Here are a few excerpts from the IMA’s collection of works that I found depicting war and social upheaval.
Sock it to me - by William Weege - 1967 - Vietnam Era
War - By William Gropper
Making Soldiers: In the Frontline Trench - By Eric Henri Kennington - 1917 - World War I Era
Doing All You Can, Brother? Buy War Bonds - 1943 - World War II Propaganda Poster
Filed under: Art, Current Events
January 6th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
We have some of those WWII propaganda posters in the collection.
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