Shoja Azari Solo Show | ZOOM Contemporary Art Fair Miami |12/1-12/5
Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller (LTMH) Gallery will show the work of artist and filmmaker Shoja Azari in a solo exhibition at the new ZOOM Contemporary Art Fair in Miami from December 1 – 5, 2010, which runs concurrently with Art Basel Miami Beach. The first edition of ZOOM, which will focus on contemporary Middle Eastern art, will be held at the South Seas Hotel at 1751 Collins Avenue in Miami Beach.
The exhibition by Shoja Azari will feature There are no non believers in hell, a video installation, informed by the timelessness of Renaissance art seen through the lens of contemporary existential anxiety. The artist is interested in questioning what this glorified period can mean; if in fact, there will be a return to the currents of irrational ism, political and/or religious fervor.
The new video work, to be projected on two adjoining walls, will create a powerful yet disturbing experience: famous Old Master paintings burning, including Caravaggio’s The Incredulity of Saint Thomas and Rembrandt’s Abraham’s Sacrifice of Isaac. As the paintings burn, the viewer hears the preachings of evangelical radicals talking about hell as a reality. The subjects of the Old Master paintings evoke strong sentiments such as doubt and faith. To accompany the new video work, three photographs, entitled Hell is No Joke, will include Goya’s Third of May, 1808, in the process of being burned.
In addition, the exhibition will include four photographs from Azari’s Interrupted series. Using a cinematic approach, the sumptuous series of staged photographs tells a story about a mullah, an odalisque, a young boy, and an Islamic militiaman and comments obliquely on clergy, corruption, politics, youth, fear and uncertainty.
The Day of the Last Judgment, 2009, infused with images of today’s saints and sinners, will also be on view at ZOOM. In the early 20th century, coffee house-style painting flourished in Iran. Based on Persian mythology, the large paintings depicted the heat of battle, the afterlife and martyrdom, truth and justice, and the apocalypse. Azari has appropriated coffee house painter Modabber’s, The Day of the Last Judgment, a painting dense with imagery and symbolism, and transformed it into a video work projected onto a black canvas.
Iranian-born Shoja Azari has lived in New York City since 1983. His films and video installations have been screened and exhibited widely around the world. Most recently, he had a solo exhibition last spring at Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller (LTMH) Gallery, which was widely reviewed to great acclaim. His video work has been seen in solo gallery exhibitions in London; Turin, Italy; and Köln, Germany, and at art fairs including Art Basel, Switzerland, and ARCO, Madrid. Since 1997, he has collaborated with Shirin Neshat on film and video installations including Women Without Men, which won the Silver Lion for best director at the 2009 Venice Film Festival. He has also collaborated with Shahram Karimi on video paintings, which project video on painted surfaces.
