A joint art project by Iranian artist Rokni Haerizadeh and Emirati artist Mohammed Kazem is currently on view at Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, in Guggenheim, New York.
Titled ‘But a Storm is Blowing from Paradise’, the collection includes Haerizadeh’s messages in skillfully created paintings, drawings, and collages, the Persian art magazine ‘Tandis’ reported.
Haerizadeh also has presented a single-channel video animation entitled ‘Reign of Winter’ as part of ‘Hello Guggenheim’, a four-week long program, which showcases diverse films and videos that are narratives about history and documentation, testimony and voice. It will be screened on Friday and Sunday, May 13 and 15 at the Guggenheim New Media Theater Hall.
Kazem is participating with large scrollwork, entitled ‘Scratches on Paper’, which was also part of the 12th Sharjah Biennial.
The exhibition borrows its title from the 24 recently-acquired drawings by Haerizadeh and illuminates contemporary artistic practices in the Middle East and North Africa and the region’s diaspora by presenting a selection of newly acquired works for the Guggenheim’s permanent collection.
“The title, is taken from a description of Paul Klee’s 1920 painting, titled ‘Angelus Novus’, which in the words of German philosopher Walter Benjamin, is consistent with the work’s piquant fusion of emotion and critique,” Haerizadeh said.
Since 2009, the Iranian artist has painted directly from photographs, often transforming news images into satirical scenes populated by surreal animal-human hybrids, citing Persian mythology as one inspiration. In the current exhibit, Haerizadeh paints on printed stills of YouTube videos and television news broadcasts of events in the Middle East and North Africa.
Following its presentation in New York through October 5, the exhibition will travel to Istanbul’s Pera Museum in 2017.
