Iran Inside Out is about a personal language of creative expression emerging from a geographical divide within a generation of contemporary Iranian artists. For those artists inside Iran, knowing how to avoid self-censorship while eluding government censors is crucial to the continued existence of their art practice. For the artists living outside Iran, presenting themselves through the lens of “universality” seems to be a more pressing concern in their attempt to assert an “unlabeled” artist-status within the predominantly western dialectics of the contemporary art milieu. Common to both, however, is the desire to establish an individual artistic identity free from the stigma of “stereotype” and “locality”. This has led to a process of deconstruction and reinvention of self and art; a process that oscillates between openness and seclusion, dialogue and separatism between those on the inside and those on the outside. Yet, through this search for a new language regardless of orientation, one element stands strong: the recurrent references, sometimes ambiguous, often nostalgic and on occasion aggressively political to Iran the country, the past, that which is lost and that which could be found. Iran Inside Out looks into the intimate means through which each of the artists represented here manages to reconcile their immediate circumstances with their search for individual artistic expression.
Iran Inside Out, the Chelsea Art Museum’s upcoming summer show, is one of several exhibitions and events that fall underneath CAM’s new 2008 -2009 initiative “The East West Project”. A forum of public events will compliment the exhibition and include films screenings by younger award winning Iranian filmmakers, theatre performances, music recitals and panel discussions in collaboration with Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery New York, ArteEast, Asia Contemporary Art Week, and Queen’s Museum.
Iran Inside Out is the second of several exhibition programs featuring Iranian artists. It is the Chelsea Art Museum’s goal to house within its premises a permanent foundation dedicated to Iranian Art and Culture.
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