TEHRAN- A collective visual arts exhibition titled "In Praise of Life," commemorating the legendary filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, will open at Iranian Artists Forum (IAF) on Friday.

Featuring works across various mediums—including painting, sculpture, photography, installation, digital art, video art, and mixed media—this event brings together 161 artists from different generations, ISNA reported on Tuesday. 

Curated by Arash Reisian, the exhibition aims to celebrate the enduring legacy of Kiarostami through contemporary artistic interpretations. 

The exhibition will be open to the public until August 17. 

Kiarostami was a film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. An active filmmaker from 1970, he was involved in the production of over 40 films, including shorts and documentaries. He attained critical acclaim for directing “Close-Up” (1990), “The Wind Will Carry Us” (1999), and “Taste of Cherry” (1997). In later works, “Certified Copy” (2010) and “Like Someone in Love” (2012), he filmed for the first time outside Iran: in Italy and Japan, respectively.

He was part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that started in the late 1960s and emphasized the use of poetic dialogue and allegorical storytelling dealing with philosophical issues. He is known for his use of Persian poetry in the dialogue, titles, and themes of his films. His films also contain a notable degree of ambiguity, an unusual mixture of simplicity and complexity, and often a mix of fictional and documentary elements. The concepts of change and continuity, in addition to the themes of life and death, play a major role in Kiarostami's works.

Kiarostami, the winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 for his “Taste of Cherry”, died of cancer on July 5, 2016 at the age of 76.

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