December 4–31, 2015
Opening: December 4, 3–9pm
Ab/Anbar Gallery
No. 2, Roshan Manesh Alley, Khaghani Street
Haftetir Square
Tehran
Iran
Hours: Sunday–Friday 12–8pm
T +98 21 88 86 07 03
press [at] ab-anbar.com
info [at] ab-anbar.com
AB/ANBAR gallery, a new multidisciplinary contemporary art centre in downtown Tehran, announces its next exhibition on December 4, featuring works by Raha Raissnia to be exhibited for the first time in Tehran.
Selected Works: Raha Raissnia is an exhibition of Raissnia’s dense explorations of light which manifest as works on paper, paintings and film installations. Described as a “night-painter,” one that Milton Cruz situates as having a habit of “starting from the other side of things,” Raissnia’s works emerge from stillness, silence and darkness whilst operating at the fleeting moment of being half-awake, as light flutters between the hallucinatory state that is difficult to wrap around consciousness.
Alongside paintings and works on paper, her 16mm film Longing (2015), which was selected as part of All the World’s Future at the 56th Venice Biennale 2015, curated by Okwui Enwezor, will be installed as a loop. For its starting point, the film drew from raw footage Raissnia took in a series of visits to a poor neighbourhood in New York’s East Harlem. An earlier film also on view, Chaleh Harz (2011), used as its starting point raw footage she took of slums of Darvazeh Ghar, south of the Grand Bazaar Tehran in 1998. Both films were made through a very layered process of re-filming raw material in-studio, combining found imagery with hand-painted slides and projecting them on screens and paintings made by the artist before they were transferred to 16mm film.
Raha Raissnia (b. 1968, Tehran) received her BFA from the School of the Art institute of Chicago in 1992 and her MFA from Pratt Institute in 2002. In the interim, her interest in avant-garde filmmaking led her to work at Anthology Film Archives (1995–99), where she has also exhibited. In 2015, her work was included in All the World’s Futures, 56th International Art Exhibition, curated by Okwui Enwezor, Venice Biennale. Previously, her work has been featured in exhibitions at White Columns (New York), Access Gallery (Vancouver), The Museum of Contemporary Art St. Louis, Khastoo Gallery (Los Angeles), Thomas Dane Gallery (London), and The Kitchen (New York), among others.
Recent group exhibitions were held at Galeria Marta Cervera (Madrid), Galerie Xippas (Paris), and the Isfahan Museum of Contemporary Art (Ishfahan, Iran). Raissnia’s projection-performances, undertaken in collaboration with Aki Onda, have been held at Arnolfini—Center for Contemporary Art (Bristol, UK), Issue Project Room (New York), and Emily Harvey Foundation (New York), among others. Raissnia’s fifth one-person exhibition is currently on view through December 22, 2015 at Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York.
About AB/ANBAR
Established in 2014, AB/ANBAR began in response to a need for the professional development of artists and facilitating exchanges between artists and art professionals in Tehran and globally. Our ethos is to stay borderless through a public programme that responds to our locality, alongside the ever-changing global situation in which we currently find ourselves. We create a dialogue with our audience, stimulating artistic practices by producing and presenting challenging works whilst simultaneously creating new ways for our audience to engage with art on an international platform.
Following Raissnia’s exhibition, AB/ANBAR will present solo and group exhibitions of Iranian and international artists including Behjat Sadar and Sanaz Mazini, culminating with Mass individualism, a group exhibition exploring art that operates at the confluence of art and architecture, including works by Siah Armajani, Y.Z. Kami, Shirazeh Houshyari, Babak Golkar, Avish Khebrezadeh, Shahab Fotouhi, and Newsha Tavakolian.
For further information, images or media enquiries contact: press [at] ab-anbar.com.
