The 1st edition ofthe national festival of painting ‘Jokal’ was launched on Friday (April 15) at Tehran’s Pardis Mellat Gallery.
The event organizer, Tehran University of Art, had issued a call for students and graduates of all academic majors in the country to participate in the festival, Honaronline reported.
According to festival secretary Sina Rezaei, in spite of the short notice, a huge number of 1,212 works of art were submitted by art enthusiasts. The event is opento all styles and medium of artworks.
Among the works, 79 items were selected by the jury comprising veteran Iranian artists Farah Ossouli, Behnam Kamrani, Babak Etminani, Masoumeh Mozaffari and Jamal Arabzadeh.
The festival will be held in two sections; the first an exhibition of selected works at the venue and the other part will include lectures, conferences and workshops, slated for April 23 to 28, said Rezaei.
The first of its kind, under the title ‘Destiny of Painting,’ the event casts a look at the history of art. Art has passed ‘conceptualism,’ a revolution in the field. Conceptual art, sometimes simply called conceptualism, is art in which the concepts or ideas involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many works of conceptual art, sometimes called installations, may be construed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions.
“The revolutionary movement in conceptualism is that inthe method, the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work and the long-taken for granted identity of the actual ‘subject’ diminishes,” said Rezaei, explaining the theme.
Jokal aims to turn the University of Art into a scientific center, which looks at different art majors from the point of view of science, he added.
Annual Event
Pointing to the necessity of organizingthe festival annually, he added: “All the national art events have special features and are specified to a certain social group; the unique feature of the current event is that it has addressed all sections of students.”
Jokal provides the opportunity for students who are not confident enough to take part in important art shows. “The festival puts equal value on each artwork, prepping a convenient atmosphere for the participants, which could help increase their self-esteem.”
The venue is located south of Mellat Park, opposite Kordestan Highway, Niayesh Expressway, Vali-e-Asr Avenue.
