Sunday, December 20, 2009

Art for Today


"Murder in Tehran" (2009) By artist Siah Armajani.

Art Forum:
"Murder in Tehran, 2009, a massive black vitrine, appears familiar at first glance, a sort of update on Ashley Bickerton or Damien Hirst. Closer inspection yields layers of solemnity and meaning as the piece works its elegiac spell. Dressed in the colors of the Iranian Revolution and veiled, like that regime, under a heavy shroud, the piece is a memorial for those lost in the state response to protests surrounding the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on June 12. The international face of that crackdown was a young woman named Neda Agha-Soltan, who was shot dead, purportedly, by Iranian security forces. Armajani memorializes her here, both in a bloodied figure cascading from atop the piece and in the dismembered limbs scattered among the stones within––both based on Neda’s exact proportions."

No comments: