Iran’s 8th international art event, the Fajr International Festival of Visual Arts, will be attended by over 4,900 artists, including 105 artists from abroad.
According to the public relations office of the event, over 85% of the applicants have PhD, masters and bachelor’s degree in art, underlining academia’s interest in the festival.
In view of the changes made to the festival procedures allowing artists to create works in the medium of their choice, 105 artists from 40 countries including Tunisia, Pakistan, Turkey, Croatia, Ukraine, Italy, Serbia, Cuba, Kirghizstan, Armenia, USA, Bulgaria, Russia, Romania, Columbia, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Peru and Germany have submitted their works.
Jamshid Haqiqat Shenas, artistic director of the festival said: “The artworks received are multi-dimensional, created with various mediums. By removing interdisciplinary barriers, a huge number of visual media works made their way to the event,” Honaronline quoted him as saying.
The organizers’ focus was on both quantity and qualitys, said festival secretary Mojtaba Aqaei. “This year’s edition could be seen as a transition from traditional to include modern works, and project a more complete picture through a wider perspective in the visual arts.”
The preliminary selection of oeuvres submitted to the secretariat, began on December 22, 2015, and the results were announced on January 2 to allow successful artists to submit their original works for the second round.
In the conference section, 42 articles have been selected among a total of 125 submitted works. Titled ‘Iran’s Contemporary Art and Globalization’, it covers subjects such as new experiences in contemporary art and in the domestic and global arena; Iran’s art in the international market and in global festivals and events.
This section will be held at the University of Tehran, University of Science and Culture, Iranian Academy of the Arts and Islamic Research Institute for Culture and Thought, all in Tehran.
The festival is organized by the Visual Arts Center of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and the artworks will be featured from January 29 until March 7 at the Saba Institute of Culture and Arts.
The festival title ‘Fajr’ refers to the 10-day Dawn Festival, February 1-11, a national celebration held annually to commemorate the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
