Bring the Beat Back
I can’t tell you how many first class exhibitions were held in London during the half year that we lived there. Each week, it seemed, there was always something good, and most importantly of interest, that we could have gone to. Sometimes I wondered if the city’s cultural events weren’t programmed specifically for us, as though they were consolation for Jennifer’s dreadful work situation.
One such event was Unveiled: New Art From the Middle East, which opened on January 30th at the new Saatchi Gallery on Kings Road. One of the most comprehensive exhibits of its kind (in the US, such shows are usually nation as opposed to region-specific) I took the opportunity to write about one of it’s featured photographers, Shadi Ghadirian, (see above) in today’s edition of Zeek.
Shot in Tehran, Ghadirian’s work is emblemmatic of the unrest currently engulfing the Islamic republic. Contending with the intersection of religion and women’s rights in the Mideast, her staged photographs nevertheless indulge a universal vernacular easily transportable to any number of foreign contexts. The ghetto blaster atop this lady’s shoulder is the tip of the iceberg. Check it out.