Tehran – At the same time as the “Women’s Words” exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art (TMOCA), the museum’s Cinematheque presents a weekly screening programme featuring documentaries focusing on women, society and the arts.
The program began on Sunday with screenings of two documentaries, “How Strange is Love, That Is Pain and Cure,” directed by Keyvan Alimohammadi and Omid Bonakdar, and screenings of two documentaries, “Mokrrameh, Memories and Dreams” by Ebrahim Mokhtari.
How Strange, Pain and Treatment is a 20-minute experimental, poetic film that offers a multi-layered story about the life of the late famous artist Iran Daldi, exploring themes of pain, liberation and self-discovery.
Iran Dardi (1936-2021) was a well-known Iranian contemporary artist. Her work is characterized by surreal paintings that incorporate Iranian-themed images and impressive lighting effects. Over the years, Daldi split time between Tehran and Paris, where she developed a distinctive style of art. Her contributions to contemporary art have left a lasting influence on the Iranian art scene.
Born in Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi, Darroudi studied the history of art at Ecole Durbulles in Paris, as well as stained glass at the Royal Academy of Brussels and TV instruction and production at the RCA Institute in New York.
Her first solo exhibition was held in Miami in 1958 at the invitation of the Florida State Art Center. Her work is on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the University of Los Angeles in Los Angeles, the University of Los Angeles in Virginia, the United Nations in New York, the La Galleria Gallery in Mexico, the Miami Beach Art Center in Florida, the Atrium Artist Gallery in Geneva, and the Gallery 21 in Julich.
In addition to her painting career, Daldi wrote an article on the history of art and criticism of the Iranian newspaper Kayan.
In 1968 she produced a 55-minute documentary on the Venice Biennale and was appointed Professor Emeritus of the Tehran Institute of Technology, where she taught art history.
In 1976, Daldi was exhibited at the Museum of Art in Mexico. There, Spanish painter Antonio Rodriguez Luna praised her as one of the greatest painters in the world.
“Mokrrameh, Memories and Dreams” is a 48-minute documentary that tells the story of Mokarrameh Ghanbari, a rural woman born from northern Iran.
Born in the village of Dali Kande in Babor County, northern Mazandaran, Mokarame began drawing in 1991 at the age of 63.
Despite her great talent, Mokarame had never received formal training in painting. She used bright original colors inspired by her beautiful natural environment and her art memories and dreams.
She painted the picture as a way for her children to express her feelings when children worried about her health no longer allowed the farm work and herd of cows she enjoyed.
Mokarame, a widow in her early 60s, spent time caring for the cows she loved and working on the farm until she got so sick that she had to go to Tehran for medical care. While she was sick in bed, her children, worried about her health, sold cows to reduce her workload. But their well-intentioned acts sent her into depression. Her first painting was a portrait of one of the cows she had so missed.
A friend handed her paper and a coloured pencil to express herself, and soon began to draw obsessions. For four years, she kept the art secret for fear of what her neighbors might think. She drew pictures late at night and hid her work if anyone came to her house. But her creative mind is not restrained. She discovered that her work was headed towards the walls of her home, the stove, and the back of abandoned wallpaper. When he discovered her new passion, her son brought her 50 sheets of paper, quickly covering both sides of them, creating a painting of natural dyes when he ran out of store-bought varieties.
Within a few years, her work had been recognized by painters from Iran and abroad. For the first time in 1995, her paintings were exhibited at the Seihn Gallery in Tehran, with follow-on displays in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2005.
Her work is compared to the paintings of Mark Chagal (1887-1985), a French surrealist from Russia. They are exhibited at more than 40 exhibitions in Iran and other countries, including the Bowers Museum in California.
In 2001, Gambari was awarded an honorary certificate at the Iranian Women’s Research Foundation conference in Stockholm and was named the Model Women of the Year. Furthermore, she was named “Woman Painter of 2001” by the Swedish National Museum.
She died in 2005 at the age of 77 and was buried in the courtyard of the house. After her death, her home was registered as a museum by Iranian cultural heritage, handicrafts and tourism organizations, and preserved her work.
Film screenings take place every Sunday at 4pm at the museum’s cinema. Tmoca is located on North Kargar Street, next to Laleh Park. Admission is free and open to the public.
The “In Women’s Words” exhibition, released on July 23rd, is dedicated to showing 121 works by contemporary Iranian female artists.
Curated by Afsaneh Kamran, Toka Maleki and Sajjad Baghban Maher, the exhibition displays works by artists such as Monir Farmanfarmaian, Behjat Sadr, Parvaneh Etemadi, Farideh Lashai and Leyly Matin Daftari.
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