Meet Iranian Graffiti Artists

Today marks the first day of spring, celebrated as the Persian New year in Iran and a number of other countries. For this occasion I take you to the streets of Iran to meet Iranian street artists.

A1one

A1one a.k.a Tanha (which means alone in Persian) has been practicing graffiti since 2003 and is considered the pioneer of graffiti in Iran . Based in Tehran, he sometimes uses Persian calligraphy in his graffiti works, an interesting turn in the history of calligraphy in Iran, since he does it so magnificently. Peace, love and children are his recurring motifs.
A1one has exhibited his works on canvas in Tehran’s  galleries as well as numerous group shows around the world.

A1one – “Al-Haq”

A10ne – “Rainy Day for the Boy” روز بارانی برای پسرک

A1one – “Love” عشق

Below is  a video interview with A1one conducted by Respectmag in Paris (video in English with French subtitle). For a written interview with the artist by Zirzamin follow this link.

For more on A1one, visit his website, Facebook page and Flickr.

Icy and Sot

Icy and Sot are an street art duo and brothers from Tabriz, Iran. They started their Stencil works as early as 2006, depicting children, the elderly and calling for peace. The Brothers held exhibitions both in Iran and internationally.
Artinfo interviewed the artists over email, to read the interview follow this link.

Icy and Sot – Innocent Faces

Icy and Sot – Lego

Icy and Sot – Hope

For more on Icy and Sot, visit their website, Facebook page, Flickr and Vimeo channel.

Street art is young in Iran and the artists sometimes deviate from the international trends to find their own private/local vocabulary and the results is always exciting to follow. Discover more from Iranian Street art at the Flickr pool for Iranian Graffiti and Street Art.

Nafir – “Perisan Stencil”

Happy new year to those who celebrate Nowruz and a great spring to all.

The Private World of Alec Soth

Alec Soth is one my favorite artists, called by The New York Times photographer of “loners and dreamers” he is one of the leading photographers of our time
Sean Kelly Gallery is hosting his most recent exhibition: “Broken Manuals“. For this occasion Hyperallergic takes a look at the exhibition, Soth’s career and the documentary “Somewhere to Disappear” in this highly recommended article. You can also take a slideshow tour of the exhibition provided by Artinfo, although I suggest visiting his website  to find more photos.  You may also want to take a look at his small business website where you can buy editions of the artist’s works; for more, follow his blog.

Alec Soth, “2007_05zL0085” (image © Alec Soth)

Urban eXperiment Explained

Urban eXperiment –or UX for short–, is an underground collective of artists based in Paris which is devoted to restoration of hidden corners of the city and activities in such places. This hacker-artist group created a buzz after restoring the Panthéon clock, but their activities are much broader.

The collective is divided into subgroups or teams: an all-female team (the Mouse House) specializing in infiltration, a team running an internal messaging system and coded radio network, a team providing a database, a team organizing underground shows, a team doing photography and a team (Untergunther) doing restoration.

For an exhaustive review of the UX and their activities, The Wired has gathered this great report.

The UX hosted an underground art show featuring replicas of paintings stolen in a 2010 heist.
Photo: UX

Arts Cuts in the UK

The Economist has an interesting article about how the state funds and subsidies in the UK have been helping different clusters of artistic activities in the past and how the new cuts will affect these activities. Read the article here, or listen to the podcast here.

The artist community is not silent about the cuts, for instance a very interesting website was launched recently with the aim of of recording all the organizations, initiatives, projects, commissions, tours and more that will be lost due to cuts in public spending on the arts.

screenshot from http://www.lost-arts.org

Mies van der Rohe’s landmark reopened

One of Mies van der Rohe’s finest glass-and-steel structures, “Villa Tugendhat”  reopened in Czech Republic. The building is one of the first examples of modern architecture in Europe and carries a very interesting history to day.
Read about the landmark’s interesting history and more about its structure in this article by The New York Times.

Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic.
photo from Wikimedia Commons