- Artist
- Rokni Haerizadeh born 1978
- Medium
- Gouache and watercolour on 9 photographs on paper
- Dimensions
- Support, each: 205 × 295 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased with funds provided by the Middle East North Africa Acquisitions Committee 2012
- Reference
- T13586
Display caption
Iranian artist Haerizadeh began altering news imagery in 2009. He was living in Dubai and became aware of election protests in his home city, Tehran. Unable to return home, he started taking pictures of the events broadcast on the television news. He made the works shown here by painting over the resulting photographs. Human figures morph into animals and political events become violent fables featuring hybrid creatures. The titles refer to Shahre Ghesseh (‘Storyville’), a series of political children’s plays with actors in animal masks that was shown on Iranian television in the 1970s, and to the 1955 poem Howl by American writer Allen Ginsberg.
Gallery label, January 2019
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