Despite enormous challenges, the LGBTQ+ movement in Iran has come a long way in the last years. Queer individuals actively participated in the Women, Life, Freedom protests. However, one of the biggest challenges remains the isolation and solitary existence of the movement.
President Joe Biden is more focused on winning his election with the support of Israel-hating progressives and Muslims than Israel winning its 9/11 war on terror.
IT’S NOT EASY to find the right moniker for Fereydoun Ave. Cumbersome hyphenates like artist-designer-gallerist seem reductive as labels for a métier that is more than the sum of its parts. Ave’s own artwork, marked by a theatrical sensibility, spans media (painting, collage, assemblage). He has produced stage sets, costumes, domestic interiors, and furniture, in addition to making frequent forays into graphic design. He has founded commercial galleries and experimental spaces. In his hometown of Tehran, he has a reputation for generosity, mentorship, and community-building and is also valued as the rare artist to have returned to live and work in Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. “I’m a bridge, darling,” he told me recently.
From framing MF Hussain and FN Souza’s paintings to showcasing them, here’s how Kekoo Gandhy laid the foundation for Chemould which turns 60 on Saturday