PRESENCE
Reflections on the Middle East
12 artists living in the U.S. and abroad.
965 Gallery
Resound: Reverberations Between Artist and Place
February 3 – April 8, 2017
Opening reception February 3, 2017, 6-8pm
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PRESENCE
Reflections on the Middle East
Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver) Center for Visual Art (CVA) announces an exhibition of more than 60 photo-based works that reflect the tension inherent in the presence, or absence, of people in a place, whether in their native land or abroad.
The artists, all who are affected by the Middle East diaspora of the past 20 years, explore what it means to leave something, and in some cases, someone, behind, whether by choice or by force, and how cultural heritage and the past are interwoven with the present. Through controlling placement and context of the figure, along with the subtleties of obscurity, these artists preserve identity, relationship and agency.
“What makes Presence really interesting is that it offers a glimpse into the artists’ creative thinking and practice informed by cultural heritage more so than geography or age,” said Cecily Cullen, CVA Managing Director / Curator. “Each artist can share a story about how geopolitical issues have affected their families and customs, and ultimately informed their artistic work.”
Photography has been theorized and argued many different ways, but there is usually no disagreement about its power in relationship to memories and the past. Since its invention, photography has been tied to the notion of the trace. Often, a presence is felt most acutely through its absence. Photographs, either directly or indirectly, contain the trace of what came before.
Artists
Arwa Abouon
Born in Tripoli, Libya, Abouon is a photographer and video artist based in Montreal, Canada. Through her playful photographs and graphic interventions, she questions her own place within a so-called Western culture on the one hand and her upbringing in a Muslim household on the other.
Golnar Adili
Based in Brooklyn and inspired by the displacement she felt while growing up in Tehran, Adili constructs photographs, collages, and assemblages that explore the longing she felt growing up between Iran and the US, always missing a place or a person.
Tarek Al-Ghoussein
Al-Goussein was born in Kuwait of Palestinian origin, and much of his work deals with how his identity is shaped in a context of inaccessibility and loss. His work explores the boundaries between landscape photography, self- portraiture and performance art.
Samira Alikhanzadeh
Born in 1967 in Tehran, Iran, Alikhanzadeh is fascinated with the issues of identity and reality in relation to past and present, and finding inspiration in the melancholic and humoristic quality of old images, she uses old found photographs, mainly family photos of the 1940s and 50s to create her artworks.
Sami Al Karim, an Iraqi artist born in 1966 in Lebanon, currently lives and works in Colorado. In 1974, Al Karim’s family moved to Baghdad, Iraq, and he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad in 1985. He has been influenced by Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations, which clearly define his earlier works.
Tulu Bayar
Turkish born, American artist Bayar works with an eclectic range of media including photography, video, sound, sculpture, performance, mixed-media and installation. Her work creates a dialog between traditional and experimental forms by combining elements of the past with a contemporary examination.
Shadi Ghadirian
As a modern Muslim woman living in Iran, Ghadirian takes photographs that exaggerate the customs of her Iranian culture and the archaic stereotypes it places upon contemporary women. With humor and irony, Ghadirian depicts women reduced to their typecasts, typically housewives draped in veils and with their faces replaced by household items—pots, pans, brooms, and meat cleavers.
Rula Halawani
As a native of occupied East Jerusalem, Halawani began her artistic career by registering the difficulties of living under a protracted political conflict. Recently, she has turned her lens toward the traces of lives and history that can still be found in often overlooked details, whether in the material culture of Palestinian society or the transformed landscapes of her childhood.
Laleh Mehran
Mehran moved to the U.S. from Iran when she was a child in the 1970s; she now lives in Denver. The daughter of Iranian scientists, her relationship to this subject is necessarily complex, and is even more so now given a political climate in which certain views are increasingly suspect. As part of her work, she delves into themes such as dissent and exile – even her own complicated relationship with politics, theology and science.
Javid Tafazoli
Born in 1982 in Bojnourd, Iran, Tafazoli graduated in photography from the University of Applied Science and Technology in Ahwaz, Iran. He is currently works with news agencies and press as a freelance photojournalist. His photography interests include social documentary and photojournalism.
Samira Yamin
Yamin was born in Evanston, Illinois and lives in Los Angeles. Her work almost exclusively begins with appropriated sources – war photography, TIME magazines, negatives that once belonged to her grandfather – that are then dissected, reorganized, and often obliterated according to disparate systems of sacred geometry, neurological visual distortions, and modernist experiments in geometric abstraction.is a contemporary artist best known for his strategically blurred and altered photographs. Born in 1963 in Najaf, Iraq, his works merge stills from films, artifacts, photos, and paintings to present topics of past trauma, reality, and dreams.
All events are free and open to the public.
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Special Events :
• Young Artist Studio: Manipulated Photography
Tuesdays and Wednesday, February 7 – March 22, 2017, 3:30-5:30 Open studio and workshops for ages 11-21
• Artist talk with Laleh Mehran Wednesday, February 8, 6pm
• Artist talk with Golnar Adili Wednesday, March 29, 2017, 5pm
Remembering Tehran: A Decade’s Review – Adili will discuss the beginning of her art practice including an architecture travel grant to Tehran, the stages of her artistic development, and the non-boundaries between craft, design and fine art in her own work.
Exhibition Organization and Sponsorship
Presence: Reflections on the Middle East is organized by Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver) Center for Visual Art (CVA).
Generous support is provided by MSU Denver’s College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. CVA Annual Sponsors are MSU Denver Student Affairs Board, SpringHill Suites Downtown at MSU Denver, Jan and Fred Mayer Fund, Marcia Gold Naiman Fund, Campbell Foundation Fund and BBVA Compass Bank.
The exhibition is curated by Cecily Cullen, Managing Director / Curator of CVA, Leila Armstrong, Visiting Faculty – Art History, Theory and Criticism, MSU Denver, and Natascha Seideneck, Visiting Faculty – Photography, MSU Denver.
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965 Gallery Concurrent Exhibition
Resound: Reverberations Between Artist and Place,
February 3 – April 8, 2017
965 Gallery, a student-run gallery at the CVA, will feature a photography exhibition – concurrent with Presence – of four artists exploring natural environments and their relation to them. Artists include MSU Denver student Andrew Duffy, MSU Denver alumni Kristin Buck, and Colorado artists Cori Storb and Michael Sandoval.
About CVA
Metropolitan State University of Denver Center for Visual Art is the off-campus contemporary art center that leverages bold exhibitions, immersive education and entrepreneurial workforce development to provide diverse, high-quality art experiences that advance the global urban dialogue. The center is open to all and has free admission. For more information, visit msudenver.edu/cva.
Hours: Tuesday – Friday: 11am – 6pm Saturday: 12pm – 5pm
965 Santa Fe Drive,
Denver, CO 80204
Tue-Fri: 11am-6pm
Sat: 12pm-5pm
303.294.5207
msudenver.edu/cva/
www.facebook.com/centerforvisualart/
During exhibitions, the CVA is open until 8 pm on First and Third Fridays.