Lot 284: BAHMAN JALALI (IRAN, B. 1944)

Image on Imagination
signed and numbered in Farsi (lower left)
photographic print on fibre base
27 1/2 x 27 1/2 in. (70 x 70cm.)
Executed in 2001-06, this work is number eight from an edition of ten

Paris, Espace Electra, Rogards Persans, 2001.
Greece, Thessalonica Museum, A Glimpse of Iran, 2002.
Dubai, Fairmount Hotel, Vis a Vis, 2004.
Paris, Carrousel du Louvre,Paris-Photo, 2004.
Minneapolis, Nash Gallery, Persian Silver, 2004.
Tehran, Museum of Contemporary Art, Silver Windows, 2006.

Bahman Jalali's comments on his 'Image and Imaginations' series:
"94 years ago a photo studio was opened in Isfahan called Chehrehnama. It was one of the most important studios in the history of photography in Iran. After the revolution, I came across the sign for the Chehrehnama studio, which had been closed years ago. Someone had drawn with red paint on it in order to ruin it, apparently in reaction to some women's pictures which were taken without the veil in that studio. Because of my interest in the history of photography in Iran, I collect anything concerning photography. After finding this sign, and having portraits of women taken in those days' studios in my archive, I came up with the idea of mixing these two; the sign and the portraits. I mixed two eras, the present and the past, and their reaction to the pictures of women."