In Brief
Iranian Cartoonist Atena Farghadani Released from Prison
Today, Iranian cartoonist Atena Farghadani was released from jail after spending over a year in Tehran's Evin Prison for her satirical drawing of Iran's policymakers as animals.
Iran
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In Brief
Iran Forces Jailed Artist to Undergo Virginity and Pregnancy Tests [UPDATED]
The Iranian artist sentenced to 12 years and nine months in prison for her satirical cartoons critical of the Iranian government was forced to repeatedly undergo virginity and pregnancy tests last year.
Art
Photography Acts as a Weapon in a Game About the Iranian Revolution
In 1979 Revolution: Black Friday, the streets of Tehran are combustive, resistance smoldering from tensely linked groups that share a dissatisfaction with the Shah.
Art
The Artist Sculpting Kurdish Identity in an Iranian City
SANANDAJ, Iran —In the far west of Iran, in a small region called “Kordestan” — a chunk of land clinging to the Zagros mountain range and named after the ethnic Kurds who inhabit this and much of the surrounding area — is the city of Sanandaj (formerly Senna), the administrative center of the region
In Brief
Iranian Artist Gets 12 Years in Prison for Political Cartoon
Atena Farghadani, a 28-year-old artist on trial in Iran over a cartoon that depicts members of parliament as animals, has been sentenced to 12 years and 9 months in prison.
Art
An Artist's Take on Iranian Identity, Detailed and Filled with Drugs
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — “I’d be OK with someone rolling up my work and smoking it,” laughs artist Taravat Talepasand on the eve of her opening at Beta Pictoris Gallery in Birmingham, Alabama.
Art
Rorschach Inkblots Conjure Up Themes of Loss in Iran
It’s not so easy for Iranian-American artists to portray their hyphenated identities.
Art
A New Media Artist Looks to Iranian Spam
Completed in June, "Like Pearls" in as an animated and interactive web-based collage inspired by Farsi spam from Morehshin Allahyari’s inbox.
In Brief
Artists's Work Caught in Canadian Customs Quagmire
Canadian Border Services have barred Iranian-born filmmaker Sadaf Foroughi from bringing an artwork into Canada because of the country's sanctions against Iran, the Globe and Mail reported.
Film
A Secret Film Smuggled Out into the World
Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi continues to make movies. Caged in his perverse, Kafkaesque "larger prison," Panahi faces a 20-year ban by the Iranian government on filmmaking, international travel, and interviews.
Art
Meditations in Longing
LOS ANGELES — The writer Rebecca Solnit once wrote, “Memory, even in the rest of us, is a shifting, fading, partial thing, a net that doesn’t catch all the fish by any means and sometimes catches butterflies that don’t exist.” For artists Golnar Adili and Samira Yamin, the process of remembering is
News
Legendary Iranian Diva Challenges Taboos with Lesbian Couple
The name Googoosh is pop cultural catnip to people across Western and Central Asia, and her latest video "بهشت" (Behesht or Heaven), which was released on Valentine's Day, may be the first explicit reference to lesbianism in mainstream Iranian pop culture.