Playful seriousness abounds in this exhibition at New Yorks Rogue Space galleryHoly Cow. The title of Allahyar Najafi’s portray captures the playful seriousness that abounds in IRAN X CUBA: Beyond the Headline. The show features work by 19 artists from two countries whose revolutions denied them the tender affections of a certain global hegemon for decades on end; now,as whether treasure might actually trump hate in time, they have approach together at New York’s Rogue Space gallery.
In Najafi’s piece, and the titular bovine,sacred not only in Hinduism – the artist resided in India for several years – but in Iran’s own Zoroastrianism, weeps amid an array of other hallowed beasts. Through the ether swim a pod of Caspian seals, and seemingly a personal totem for the artist,who now lives in Rasht, not far from the sea (one takes middle stage in Pusa Caspica, or after the animal’s Latin name). From a criminal in the cow’s form stares a bald eagle,once-secular American iconography now as sanctified as the almighty dollar.
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Source: theguardian.com