28/9/2007 - 30/12/2007

Bahman Jalali

Not only in his own massive production over more than forty years, but in fact in his sustained endeavours as a collector, curator, historian and a repository of transmission to the new generation, Bahman Jalali (Tehran, 1944) incarnates the living memory of a visual modernity that is crucial in Iran’s historical transition to moral and normative independence.

Bahman Jalali has photographed the four corners of his homeland, documented its wars and revolutions, pictured its desert landscape, recorded the facial topography of his people, and has shown that he is intimately familiar with the empty stillness of Iran’s villages and cities. Looking at Bahman Jalali’s photographs is to witness the evident and hidden history of his people - from the streets and battlefronts of its revolutions and wars, to the vacated landscape of its deserts and small towns, and then down to the distant corners of its photographic memories. His work and activity are thus the indices of the enduring role of photography in the emergence of his country as a modern nation-state over the last two hundred years, and chart the various visual regimes that have been constitutional to the formation of Iranian modernity. Evident in his work and running through the silhouettes of his photographic memory are the active registers of a visual modernity coterminous with a national narrative at the roots of Iranian collective consciousness.

This exhibition covers all aspects of the work of Bahman Jalali, including a wide selection of his documentary photographs, that have been taken mainly in Iran since the beginning of the 1970s. Two important documentary projects are presented: Days of Blood, Days of Fire (Tehran, 1978-1979), a testimony to the Iranian revolution, and Khorramshahr: A City that was Destroyed (1981), which documents the Iran-Iraq war. In addition, there are other documentary series dealing with daily life, the lives of fishermen, and the traditional architectonic forms of the Iranian desert and of the city of Bushehr, as well as a selection of photomontages from the Qajar era which revisit the history of Iranian photography in an experimental and innovative way.

‘Southern City of Bushehr’

(1974-2006)
‘You might have heard the name of the port city of Bushehr in the news in relation to Iran’s first nuclear plant, begun by the Germans thirty years ago. But there are few people who know anything about the city itself and its beautiful architecture. Bushehr is one of the oldest and most important harbours in Iran and its architecture has been influenced by its trade links with India and Zanzibar.
When I first went to Bushehr in 1972 I was deeply impressed by its architecture. Since my first visit, I have been to Bushehr many times and photographed the city. Each time I have witnessed further destruction of the old buildings. These pictures are only a small part of my collection of photographs of this beautiful city suffering an almost daily destruction.’

‘Fishermen’

(1974-1980)
‘In southern Iran, along the Persian Gulf, thousands of people’s lives are linked to the sea. In 1972 I went to the port city of Bushehr for the first time and started to get to know the people who live along the water. Since then I have lived with them from time to time. I have gone to sea in their fishing boats and witnessed how hard they work, both day and night. Fishing is precarious work. Every day the working conditions become harder for these people as the presence of oil tankers, cargo vessels and naval ships pollute the waters, leaving less and less fish to be caught.’

‘Desert Architecture’

(1977-1991)
‘The desert architecture of Iran is recognised as one of the most important architectural styles in the world. It can be very ornate and refined, but at other times its simple forms are inspired by nature. Here it doesn’t impose itself on its surroundings but becomes a part of them. The ingenious technique of channelling the breeze through ventilation shafts, together with the mud-brick [adobe] domed ceilings, adds to the beauty of these buildings.
I have seen and photographed desert architecture many times. I am always impressed by its harmony with the natural surroundings and by the anonymous architects who knew exactly how to use nature’s powers in constructing buildings. This is a far cry from the way we go about destroying our environment today.’

Days of Blood, Days of Fire

(Tehran, 1978-1979)
Photographs by Bahman Jalali and Rana Javadi.
‘This is a photographic record of Iran’s revolution. The photographs were taken in Tehran. The time span covered is 64 days, from Sunday 10 December 1978, the day of the first really mammoth anti-Shah demonstrations in Iran, to Sunday 11 February 1979, when the Iranian army finally decided to withdraw and the Shah’s regime collapsed. Many of these images were published in the book Rouzhaye Khouch, Rouzhaye Atash (Days of Blood, Days of Fire) in 1978-1979. The book ran to three editions, although the third was discontinued and prohibited.’

Khorramshahr. A City that was Destroyed

(1981)
‘When on 22 September 1980 Iraqi forces attacked Iran’s main airport and a war broke out, no one believed that war would last for eight years. Thousands of people lost their lives or were injured, and thousands more were made homeless, having to move to other cities or even leave the country altogether. For eight years the world stood by and watched.
My story is about a city called Khorramshahr in the south of Iran, which was occupied by the Iraqi military from November 1980 until June 1982. On my return, Khorramshahr was an empty city that lay in ruins. Some of these photographs were reproduced in the book Abadan Fights on. A Photographic Testimony by Bahman Jalali published by Zamineh Books in 1981.’

‘Chehrenegar’s Studio’

(1993)
‘In 1990, together with Mohammad Hassan Khoshnevis and Rana Javadi of the Cultural Research Bureau, I dreamed of establishing a photography museum. We used to travel the country looking for old studio equipment, plates and photographs. In 1993 I came across the Ferdowsi studio in Shiraz, which had belonged to the Chehrenegar family for three generations and was at that time run by Bahram Chehrenegar. The Chehrenegars had learned photography in India before settling with their new-found skills in Shiraz. Bahram Chehrenegar lived alone and, with competition from other more modern studios in the city, he didn’t have much work. I persuaded him to sell his equipment and archive to the Cultural Research Bureau for safekeeping. Bahram Chehrenegar died in Shiraz in 2001 and these pictures are the last from his studio.’

‘Image of Imagination’

(2000-2003)
‘Black and White’ (2000) / ‘Sepia’ (2002)
‘Over many years of teaching photography in several universities, and throughout my numerous journeys in Iran, I have seen many images, often by unknown photographers. Later, using my imagination as a filter, I tried to reproduce them. At first I tried using offset printing machines to combine different images of the Qajar period taken from the photographic collection of the Golestan Palace: eunuchs, women, people, places, houses, and odd things. Then I took them into the darkroom. On the sensitive surface of ordinary photographic paper these images gave birth to a new world, a world that one finds only in the imagination. In the space between the tangible and virtual, where time is set aside, a world emerges that brings these two realities ever closer.’

‘Red’

(2003)
‘Opened in Esfahan 94 years ago, the Chehrehnama studio was to become one of Iran’s most important photographic studios. After the revolution, I came across the sign for the Chehrehnama studio, which had been closed some years before. Someone had defaced it with red paint, apparently in protest against pictures of women without the veil that had been taken in that studio. After finding this sign, and also having some of these photographs in my archive, I came up with the idea of mixing the two: the sign and the women’s portraits. I mixed two eras, the present and the past, alluding to each era’s reaction to these images.’

Texts by Bahman Jalali