Art expo to honor Abbas Kiarostami

An art exhibition inspired by Abbas Kiarostami’s documentary ‘ABC Africa’ has scheduled to memorialize the late Iranian film master Abbas Kiarostami.

Tehran’s Dargoun Gallery has organized the exhibition titled ‘The Other Side of the Window’ to be held from Kiarostami’s birthday on June 22 to his death anniversary on July 5.

More than 40 artists, including Marjan Sabeti, Taraneh Sadeqian, Milad Azizi, Reza Hedayat, Elham Yazdanian, Ahmad Moradi, Soheil Hashemi, Mohammadreza Abbasi and Mina Ghaffari have created 43 exclusive tableaus for the event.

The director of the gallery, Arash Raiesian said “Paying tribute to Kiarostami is a topic of my concern … I insist on organizing an annual art event in his memory.”

Considering Kiarostami’s ‘ABC Africa’ (2001) which is about the damages caused by AIDS and civil war in Uganda, Raiesian added “Each organized event should turn its spotlight on a certain social concern.”

The event organizers have decided to grant a portion of the funds that will be raised by the exhibition to the Alborz Society of Health Advocate (ASHA) which is an Iranian NGO that provides various services for children with HIV.

The prominent storyteller Mahtab Shahidi will narrate stories for groups of such children on the sideline of the expo.

Children’s book writer Mostafa Rahmandoust will also hold poetry sessions and children’s art teacher Jamaleddin Ekrami and painter Samira Darya are to hold theatrical performances during it.

Kiarostami, winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Festival in 1997 for his film ‘Taste of Cherry’, passed away on July 4, 2016 at the age of 76.

He was also an accomplished photographer and painter. His last film was ‘Like Someone in Love’ (2012), a romantic drama set in Japan, which was nominated for a Palme d’Or at Cannes.

The late writer-director has been critically hailed as a pioneer of the Iranian New Wave.

He is mostly known as a screenwriter, film editor, art director and producer as well as a poet, photographer, painter, illustrator, and graphic designer.

MG/MMF