User:Amirbaradaran/Sandbox

Amir Baradaran (b. 1977) is a New York-based visual and performance artist. He was born in Tehran but moved to Montreal at the age of thirteen when his family relocated. He grew up surrounded by the literary works of his mother and grandfather, but art was not Baradaran's original pursuance and during his last year working toward a Masters of Arts in Communication Studies at Concordia University, he took up painting. While in school he studied political science, philosophy, and queer theory which at its core parallels his artistic career of exploring the cross-section of race and gender and how they interact in the public sphere. He also participated in a number of activist demonstrations throughout Canada.

His works are often site specific involving intensive research. There is not one specific medium Baradaran pays allegiance to, letting the formation of each piece dictate the mediums used, although contemporary technology often finds a role in his work. He received considerable critical recognition for a piece entitled, The Other Artist Is Present (2010), where he infiltrated the Museum of Modern Art with a performance in 4 acts.

Selected Works

Poetic Quarrel, 2007

In three series of large mixed media paintings, Baradaran drew from a combination of influences dealing with contrasting ideas of existence: his own transnational identity, traditional and modern philosophies, Occidental and Oriental cultures, and classical Persian poetry.

Lavish Contemptuousness

The first part of the series focuses is placed on the influence of a metaphor presented by poet Muhammad Iqbal, who compares the stillness of the shore and the ever moving wave as two contrasting states of existence. Baradaran parallels to the act of painting existing as a still presentation of a moving act through large circular hand gestures against elements acting still like that of the shore. The result was intended to evoke stimulating personal exploration unique to the viewer rather than attempt to represent the poem itself in the form of a painting.

Timeless Chat

In this next series, Baradaran attempts to extend toward the exploration of the traditional and the modern, while giving recognition to Iranian artists from the 1950's and 1960's in order to bring to light their return to their artistic traditions in order to "break down the boundaries of modernity." Here Baradaran includes intertwining cirlces which reference the shape of the word "Hé" in Persian calligraphy and rosaries to represent spiritual growth.

Frantic Harmony

In the final set of the series, Baradaran extends his own “self” by using his fingers as the medium between the paint and the canvas, and employs organic materials, including grass and mud. He references his visual starting point - a wave and a shore - "constructing a safe space to which the viewers can return and self-reflect on the spiritual journey they have experienced."

The Other Artist Is Present, 2010

During Marina Abramovic's performance "The Artist is Present" as part her retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, Baradaran infiltrated the museum and Abramovic's performance in four theatrically staged parts. Video documentation of the performance is currently viewable on the artist's website.

Act I: Bodies and Wedding

Dressed in a red dress similar to the blue one Abramovic was wearing, Baradaran sat across from her and proposed marriage: "I love your bodies of work, and I would love to be wedded to this body... do you accept this marriage, here and now?" When Abramovic did not respond, Baradaran went on to describe the Shiite tradition of temporary marriage, and ended the act with a dance.

Act II: Behind the Canvas

In Act II Baradaran sat with three canvasses veiling his face, lifting them one at a time to reveal a different message referencing borders and outsiders displayed underneath. The second message he revealed "I Am a Nurse from New Zealand," a reference to an earlier interview where Abramovic admitted to using the phrase to detract others while traveling, prompted Abramovic to smile and audibly laugh.

Act III: Other Traces

For the third act, Baradaran intoned "He is beauty and he loves beauty" in Arabic while rocking back and forth. When getting up to leave, he deliberately left his wallet on the table in front of Abramovic and when a concerned guard attempted to return it to him, Baradaran refused to accept it.

Act IV: Reflections

After being escorted out of the museum by guards, Baradaran set up another wooden table identical to Ambrovic's against the glass museum entrance. There he chanted and swayed with increasing volume, attempting a dialogue with the museum itself and to shape the experience of the entering visitors.

Transient, 2010

From September 9 until 15, 2010 more than 6,300 New York City taxi cabs displayed the project "Transience," consisting of 14 different 40 second video clips of various taxi drivers peering at their passenger through the rear-view mirror, interspersed among the regular advertising and news of the Taxi TV program. The project was viewed by an estimated 1.5 million passengers during its run. Of the project, Baradaran has said, “As much as the taxi itself is visible, the man or woman driving it is quite invisible,” he says. “I started thinking about the racial and class dynamics around that, and the project built and built.”

Social Engagement

Baradaran is also an engaged social activist, having acted as the managing director the the 2003 International Diaspora Film Festival and as member of the McGill University Equality Subcommittee for Queer People as a student in 2003. In 2004 he cofounded the Canadian Caucus for Two-Spirited and Queers of Colour in conjunction with the LGBT advocacy organization EGALE Canada, an effort "to provide a space for these groups to identify and discuss issues that affect their communities in a 'safe' and 'open' environment." He also served as an organising committee member of the 2004 Out in Color conference on in the intersection of race and sexuality in Quebec.

Writing Contributions

• Shari Brotman et Joseph J. Lévy… Amir Baradaran et al. 2008. Intersections: Cultures, sexualités et genres, Québec: Presses de l'Université du Québec
• Ryan, Bill, Shari Brotman, and Amir Baradaran. 2006. The Colour of Queer Health Care: Experiences of Multiple
• Oppression in the Lives of Queer People of Colour in Canada. Montreal: School of Social Work, McGill University

Conferences and Lectures

• Sexual Representation in Cinema: Queering Muslim Bodies (lecture), 2007, Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, Concordia University
• Women and Development (lecture), 2006, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University
• Culture Shock: HIV/AIDS (presentation), 2006, Quebec Public Interest Research Group, McGill University
• Iranian Women after Twenty Years of Revolution: Opportunities and Challenges (presentation), 2005, Congress on Paradoxes of Citizenship: Environment, Exclusion, Equity, Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (CFHSS)/Canadian Association for the Study of Development (CASID), University of Western Ontario
• Representing Muslim Bodies: Death Over "Here" and Over "There" (presentation), 2005, Racial Violence and the Color Line of the New World Order, Researchers and Academics of Color in Canada for Equity (RACE), Dalhousie University
• Sexuality and the Diaspora (presentation), 2005, Second Generation Iranians Looking Inward: Religion, Gender and Sexuality, Iranian Alliances Across Borders (IAAB), University of Maryland
• Orientalism and Middle Eastern Desires (lecture), 2005, Ethics of Sexuality, School of Religious Studies, McGill University
• Re-Orienting the Queer and Queering the Orient (presentation), 2004, 5th Biennial Conference: Iran and the Iranian Cultural World as an "Other" in Academic and Popular Representations, International Society for Iranian Studies/Critique Magazine: Critical Middle East Studies, Bethesda, MD
• Racism and Identity Formations (lecture), 2003, Seminar of Diversity, School of Social Work, McGill University
• Resistance Against the Empire (presentation), 2003, Annual International Conference/Retreat, Alternatives Canada, Montreal, Canada

External links

• AmirBaradaran.com Artist's website
• Amir Baradaran at Peters Street Gallery