New York’s MoMA to hold Kiarostami retrospective
A vast array of his short, documentary, and feature films is scheduled to be screened and discussed during the program entitled Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker.
The MoMA Website describes Kiarostami as one of the world’s widely celebrated and leading contemporary filmmakers.
“His recognizable, personal style of filmmaking is permeated by a forward-thinking, innovative spirit that has placed his work at the vanguard of filmmaking -- all the while carving a place for Iranian cinema in modern film history.
“…Kiarostami’s is a cinema of journeys and discovery, in which he frequently undercuts any narrative impulse by creating ellipses, or disrupts the sound-image continuum in order to thwart expectations, often to shocking or frustrating effect. This strategy complements the director's aim of actively engaging the viewer in a way that beautifully augments the captivating emotional effect of these masterful works.
“All of Kiarostami’s works have an elusive yet immensely powerful poetic quality, one that develops as questions asked in a blunt, straightforward manner evolve into much larger ethical and philosophical inquiries.”
Kiarostami’s gallery installation “Five” (2004) -- a canny and sublime work which will also be screened as a single theatrical projection during the retrospective of the artist’s entire moving-image oeuvre -- is also slated to be held at the Yoshiko and Akio Morita Gallery of the MoMA from March 1 to May 28.
This meditative work, which focuses on the ebb and flow of the tide at a beach, comprises five segments projected in a continuous and synchronized loop onto five separate partitions dividing the gallery space, with the audio component of each screen blending slightly together.
His collection of poems, “Walking with the Wind”, has been rendered into several languages and his works of photography have been displayed in many exhibitions around the world.