Art Jameel, an organisation that supports artists and creative communities, announces the opening of Some seasons: Fereydoun Ave and the Laal Collection, 1959-2019 (September 27, 2023 – March 23, 2024) at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai’s hub for contemporary art and ideas. Showcasing five decades of artist, curator, designer and collector Fereydoun Ave’s singular collection of modern and contemporary Iranian art, the group exhibition features paintings, sculpture, works on paper, rare booklets and archival material as well as portraits and polaroids of and more than 37 artists, providing a unique vantage onto the fascinating – and contested – cultural history of 20th and 21st century Iran.
Originally conceived by the Carnegie Museum of Art for the 58th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (September 24, 2022 – April 2, 2023), Some seasons: Fereydoun Ave and the Laal Collection, 1959-2019 is curated by Negar Azimi and Sohrab Mohebbi with Talia Heiman. Over the past five decades, Fereydoun Ave, who is an established artist himself, has assembled a collection formed by personal history, friendship, sensibility and circumstance. The Jameel Arts Centre iteration unfolds across Gallery 9 and 10 and is presented roughly in three epochs: the late Pahlavi period, the early revolutionary era, and the last 20 years, offering uncommon insights into histories of art production and circulation in Iran from the late 1950s to the present.
Featured artists: Ali Golastaneh, Amirhossein Esmaili, Arash Hanaei, Ardeshir Mohasses, Ashurbanipal Babilla, Behjat Sadr, Bijan Saffari, Bita Fayyazi, Cy Twombly, Davood Emdadian, Farhad Moshiri, Haydeh Ayazi, Hossein-Ali Zabehi, Houman Mortazavi, Iman Raad, Khosrow Hasanzadeh, Leyly Matine-Daftary, Mamali Shafahi, Manouchehr Yektai, Monir Sharoudy Farmanfarmaian, Michaelis Makroulakis, Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam, Mostafa Sarabi, Nazgol Ansarinia, Nikzad Nodjoumi, Parvaneh Etemadi, Raana Farnoud, Ramin Haerizadeh, Reza Shafahi, Rokni Haerizadeh, Sadra Baniasadi, Shahab Fotouhi, Shideh Tami, Shirin Aliabadi, Sirak Melkonian, Yaghoub Amaemehpich, Yashar Samimi Mofakham.
Ave (b. 1945) serves as both subject and cipher of this unique presentation. A linchpin figure, he returned to Iran in 1970 after years of education abroad, organising groundbreaking exhibitions at the Iran-America Society’s Tehran cultural centre and the Zand Gallery, while also serving as resident designer at the avant-garde Theater Workshop (Kargah-e Namayesh). He remained in Iran after the fateful Iranian Revolution of 1979, where he went on to launch 13 Vanak, an irreverent independent arts space in the disused garden shed of an iconic Tehran square. 13 Vanak ran for over two decades, incubating and launching the careers of countless artists. In the 2000s, Ave spent some years in Dubai where he was an influential patron, curator and artist.
Some seasons: Fereydoun Ave and the Laal Collection, 1959-2019 opens Wednesday, September 27, 2023 with a conversation featuring Fereydoun Ave between led by exhibition co-curators Negar Azimi and Sohrab Mohebbi, featuring Fereydoun Ave. with designer Aria Kasaei and artist Nazgol Ansarinia.
Press release from Art Jameel
