Curator, Shangri La:
Imagined Cities
City of Los Angeles
Dept of Cultural Affairs/ Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, 2014-15
The exhibition was produced by Baghdad-born Rijin Sahakian, a guest curator selected by DCA for her intimate knowledge of the contemporary art scene and pioneering work in the Middle East. Ms. Sahakian’s ambitious curatorial project, along with a book-length companion catalogue, explored issues of travel, mobility, and collection making, providing a powerful framework for discussions around the politics of production and acquisition, and the mechanisms of global capital, power, and violence in the circulation and “making of” individual identities and aesthetics. Artists include: Haig Aivazian, Jananne Al Ani, Cumea Halim, Taysir Batniji, Charles Gaines, Mariam Ghani, Gelare Khoshgozaran, and Adrian Paci. - excerpted from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Aug 27, 2014
A pdf of the catalogue may be downloaded here, and includes contributions by Charles Gaines, Mostafa Heddaya (co-editor), Daniel Berndt, H.G. Masters, Gelare Khoshgozaran, Haig Aivazian, Pascual Sisto, Chitra Ganesh & Mariam Ghani with Alexis Agathocleous & Ramzi Kassem, Jason Waite, Gulf Labor (ed. Haig Aivazian) with Molly Crabapple, Guy Mannes-Abbott, and Andrew Ross, Jessica Winegar, Krzystof Wodiczko, Walid Raad, Ella Shohat & Robert Stam, Uzma Z. Rizvi, Jalal Toufic
Exhibition Reviews
Review, Shangri La: Imagined Cities, Art Asia Pacific , December 22, 2014
Taysir Batniji’s Ghostly Carvings at Barnsdall Recall Fallen Brother, LA Times, Oct. 27, 2014
The Problem with Shangri-La, Good Magazine, October 28, 2014
Los Angeles Champions Islamic Art in City-Wide Showcase, Al Arabiya, October 30, 2014
Image right, Haig Aivazian, How Great You Are O Son of the Desert!, 2009-ongoing. Video stills, Video. Color, stereo sound, 60:00. Courtesy of the artist
Image left, Charles Gaines, Notes on Social Justice: Freedom’s Jubilee! (1865), 2014. Ink on Strathmore paper, 48” x 35” Courtesy of the artist
Image right, Charles Gaines, Notes on Social Justice: Hurrah For Grover Cleveland, (1892), 2013. Ink on Paper, 76” x 46” Courtesy of the artist and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects
Image right, Cumea Halim, Untitled, Beirut (2012), 2014 Inkjet print, 38" × 30" Courtesy of the artist
Top Left, Jananne Al-Ani, Aerial I, 2011. Production still from the film Shadow Sites II. Archival chromogenic C-Type Print, 69” x 87” Photography by Adrian Warren. Courtesy of the artist
Bottom Left, Aerial IV, 2011. Production still from the film Shadow Sites II. Archival pigment print, 18” x 22” Photography by Adrian Warren. Courtesy of the artist
Top Right, Jananne Al-Ani, Aeiral III, 2011. Production still from teh film Shadow Sites II. Archival pigment print, 18” x 22”. Photography by Adrian Warren. Courtesy of the artist
Bottom Right, Jananne Al-Ani, Aerial VI, 2011. Production still from the film, Shadow Sites II. Archival pigment print, 18” x 22” Photography by Adrian Warren. Courtesy of the artist
Adrian Paci, The Column, 2013. Production shot. HD video projection. Color, sound, 25:40. Photography by Roberto Marossi. Courtesy of the artist and kaufmann repetto, Milan