THRESHOLD OF THE INNOCENTS AND MARTYRED (click on image to enlarge)HARAM EH MASSOUMEEN VA SHOHAD HADuring the Month of October Motevalli will be performing in the project room every Sunday from 2-5 pm Statement | Biography | Dedication | Thanks
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STATEMENTMotevalli is Farsi for “Keeper of the Shrine”. My father’s family has for hundreds of years been the caretakers of a shrine of the Imamzadeh Yahya. The memories of this shrine and my visits there as a child haunt me and have a reoccurring aesthetic and or structural presence in my work. These shrines in Iran are not only sacred and holy places, but also symbolic of the ultimate sacrifice for the collective survival under oppressive conditions. I have dedicated much of my installation work to recreating the spirit of the Shia shrine. There is in my thought process a natural tendency to look for the same symbols in every environment that I arrive in. This veneration for those slain unjustly was also found in the neighborhoods I’ve lived in the United States. People live in similar oppressive conditions as what dominant narratives have defined, third world. I have seen and want to reflect similarities in coping. When someone is unjustly slain, their loved ones will create a street shrine. This not only helps the psychological healing but creates a monumental memorial, even if ephemeral. Histories are often told from a perspective of those in a position of Dominance. Shrines tell the story of the slain from the perspective of those who are not only oppressed but also supportive to the resistance to the dominant culture. In my piece, “Haram eh Massoumeen va Shohad ha (Threshold of the Innocents and Martyred), I celebrate the lives of the contemporary shaheed who have been defiled in the news and media or simply not mentioned. The shrine is dedicated to those who have lost their lives in recent homicides at the hands of Law Enforcement upholding occupation. I recently had a conversation with a neighbor who was reviewing some of the photos I’ve taken for research on my studio/living room wall. I said, “This is Mid-City, isn’t it? Some people call it West Adams, but I thought only people from the valley call it South Central and I’m from Iran. I’ve never lived in Iran during a time of war. There was some turmoil, but not what’s socially defined as war.” He kept looking at the photos of street shrines, guns, palm trees, electric lines and small flags, food carts and went on to say, “But I’ve got to give it to you guys, your people are really giving it to the States” He explained “The insurgents are getting us left and right. You guys are winning the war” He kept talking and saying “you Arabs” I listened for a while until he was quiet. I said, “I’m not Arab, nothing against anyone who is, but I’m Iranian, we speak Farsi and actually I’m ethnically, Mazandarani” My neighbor was never adversarial in this conversation. He positioned himself on the side of us “Arabs”. He said, “You know, those burkas look kinda sexy to me…hey! Do you Bellydance? Interestingly…I do Bellydance. Amitis Motevalli
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Select past works:
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BIOGRAPHYAmitis Motevalli was born in Tehran, Iran and moved to the US with her family in 1977. In her exploration of artwork, she has incorporated a combination of near-eastern aesthetic with a western art education. Since her migration from Iran to the United States, her vision has shown a duality of culture, both natural and learned. Amitis Motevalli introduces a dialogue that critiques the western view of Central Asian women and culture in general. Her work recreates the concepts of Islamic art, yet with a resolve that adapts and exploits her environment and experiences. Professionally, she has been involved in art education with youth who share with her a similar duality in their vision. Through her involvement with youth and art, Motevalli has worked in creating social change with her students on civil rights and equal access within their schools. She is currently living and working in Los Angeles, exhibiting art and working toward creating educational justice. "The focus of my work has centered on signage and symbology from Iranian and Islamic art such as pattern and miniature painting. I am also influenced by symbology used in American pop culture in particular, symbols generated by American media. My exploration is in methods, which construct a collective perspective. Although my work changes in form the connective thread in the content looks at the creation of symbols or icons through persuasion or other means. I am interested in what gives power to images and how they can represent philosophies or actions. In 1977 my family emigrated from Iran to America. At that time we did not predict that turmoil would keep us from returning to our homeland and family. This estrangement from my own culture and entrance into a culture with a history of hostility toward the previous creates, in my work an overlapped aesthetic through the visual culture of Iran and all of the cultures within Los Angeles. There is not a sense of belonging to either territory but a constant intermingling or float over all. Right; Rite; Write Piece is a performance based on the attempt to claim imposed language and create something which gives agency to those who speak, write or listen to it. Many who communicate in "informal" English at home or with loved ones understand the shift and sometimes block that occurs when in a dominant context that uses "formal" English such as institutions and in printed documentation. In the piece, I claim a language, which I consider "unnatural" by telling the story of learning English and writing in almost a purge. While writing, members of the audience are encouraged to pick up permanent markers and write on my clothes, my body and even my written scroll. Throughout the performance I remain passive to the audience to allow their actions. This performance is inspired by a fluxus performance by Yoko Ono entitled “Cut Piece”. “Re-aiming the Canon”, focuses on reversing powers that “create” history and the reclaiming of the future. In seven paintings images are taken from news media which was largely omitted from headlines to maintain a dominant political climate, the paintings create a scenario of militant resistance. The locations are unknown, the specific struggle unclear. There is a feeling of creating a people’s resistance somewhere in a “third world nation”, without a definitive location. Within the propaganda of empire, the de-historicized becomes historicized and the mystified become de-mystified. Within these paintings, I attempt to illustrate the strength and humanity of people continually framed as “evil” or “victim”. Paintings of guns and explosives within the hands of black and brown hands and veiled and masked faces become an insurgency to erase “Orientalism”. The ratification of the “evil” other is here exploded as a dialectical image of discursive formations of power. These images are presented as a form of counter propaganda. In a series entitled “Equal Education” the pieces “Self Portrait Exaggerating Me as a Terrorist”, and “In Defense of Self defense III”, I use high school lesson plans to guide the drawings. The work uses text, written with a style drawn from Islamic calligraphy and patterning to reveal trends in education, that uphold questioned heroes. Illuminated manuscripts based on the Koran depict images with text derived from the dwa or prayer, patterned to create an image. In my piece “Self Portrait Exaggerating Me as a Terrorist” my own face is used as a symbol of dissent. As told through my title there is a reference to Adrian Piper’s “Self Portrait Exaggerating my Negroid Features”. In a series of work entitled “Through Me the Prophet will Forever Speak”, Images of Western cultural icons, such as Che Geuvara, Tupac Shakur and Princess Diana are used to deconstruct the concept of “starpower” or in religious terms, idolatry. The face of each idol on a post card is painted over with an eastern image in classic miniature style. The work has a general reference to the Prophet’s return to Mecca. When establishing Islam in it’s formation, relics of Idolatry were either destroyed or defaced. Through the defacing of Icons a shift in power occurred away from the image of mortality as equal in status with god. “Stop it at it’s Source” was inspired in part by the physical atmosphere within interiors of sacred Islamic spaces. It is also inspired by a political atmosphere in western society, driven by misconceptions of Islam. A central sculpture, reminiscent of a chandelier is entirely constructed of clear plastic knives. The walls are the color of damp earth and surrounded by text translated from Arabic to Farsi, then transliterated to English and written in a font to resemble Kufic. In the string bikini installations of “The Stretch Manifesto” series and gambling elements as in the “Persian Princess” series, the materials are used to create a sacred space, without defining it’s territory, and with the capacity to move the Artwork elsewhere. The negative space is also essential, especially in my figurative work, such as the bikini installations and “Copenhagen” drawings; there is no true presence of the body. In Islamic art the absence of figure is necessary to avoid idolatry and refuse the “canon of proportions”. Through the vision and experience of each viewer, the pieces will fit to accommodate their systematic idealism; therefore the pieces are in constant change. All symbols are things that represent something else. I focus on those created by a collective understanding either locally, influenced by culture and context or understood globally based on human experience. My work is influenced by art production that isolates and discusses those symbols, ranging from minimalism to communication art. More than anything, my body of work exploits the signifiers relayed through iconic symbols. It looks at how icons can be complemented through their various linguistic messages and how they can be manipulated to change historical circumstances." |
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I made it for them...and all who have been killed in cities seized by militarized occupation Michael Cho, 25 – January 1 Eddie Felix Franco, 56 – August 31 |
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Mahin Emrani, Shahnaz Motevalli, Clayton Campbell, Ronald Lopez and everyone at 18th Street, Terry Mason, Alexandra Pembelton in Oakland, Ken Pannabecker, Villa Montalvo, Kelly Sicat, Joaquin Cienfuegos with Copwatch, Hood News and Bobby Ellerbee. |
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