Parviz Tanavoli’s Exhibition Extended for One Month

Due to popular demand Boom Art Gallery in Tehran has extended the exhibition of artworks of renowned sculptor and painter Parviz Tanavoli for another month.

The exhibit was initially programmed for 80 days. It opened on November 6, 2017 to conclude on January 26. The works include 21 pieces of his works most of which have been purchased by the art gallery at national and international auctions over the years,  Honaronline reported.

Seven of the sculptures at the exhibit are from Tanavoli’s bronze collection of calligraphic sculptures ‘Heech’, equivalent to the word ‘nothing’ in Persian.  

So far Tanavoli, 80,  has made at least a hundred heeches, small and big. Some sculptures lean on a chair, others stand next to each other like a couple.

Five sculptures by four of Tanavoli’s students, namely Mona Pod, Ramin Jamshidi, Hoorad Gorji and Alireza Masoumi are also on show.

 A 10-miute video (in English) is also played at the gallery which talks about Tanavoli’s bronze sculpture The Wall (Oh Persepolis) which was created in black and gold in 1975. In 2008, it fetched $2.8 million at a Christie’s auction in Dubai.

It is a massive bronze sculpture nearly two meters high covered with what looks like hieroglyphic marks which are in fact some signs and shapes made by Tanavoli. The work is named Persepolis after the ancient Persian city of Cyrus the Great and Darius I of the Achaemenid Empire around 500 BC.

The video is a part of the one-hour documentary ‘Parviz Tanavoli: Poetry in Bronze’ directed by Canadian filmmaker Terrence Turner in 2014.

An award winning director, producer, writer and artist, Turner has also made ‘Adele’s Wish’ (2008), a story about Nazi art theft and restitution. 

An art scholar and collector, Tanavoli graduated from the Brera Academy of Milan in 1959. Upon graduation, he taught sculpture for three years at the US Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He returned to Iran and assumed the directorship of the Sculpture Department at the University of Tehran, a position he held for 18 years until 1979, when he retired from teaching.

The show will run through February 23 at the gallery located at No. 11, West Armaghan St., Vali-e-Asr Ave.