Two Iranian Artists at Greater New York 2021

After postponing the Greater New York  show due to the pandemic, the Museum of Modern Art PS1(MoMA) announced the list of artists that will participate in the fifth edition of this event.

This exhibition will be opened on October 7, 2021 with  47 artists and will be focused on New York City's artistic communities. Greater New York is one of the most important institutional exhibitions that is being held alongside the triennial New Museum (that will be held in October) and the Whitney  biennial that takes place in New York City. Usually, the Greater New York is held every five years and the focus is on the artists who reside in New York City. This edition of the show will be held under the supervision of Serubiri Moses, an independent curator who had been with the Berlin Biennale team since 2018; and also Ruba Katrib who's the curator of the Long Island  Museum. These two curators alongside Kate Fowle manager of the PS1, Inés Katzenstein curator of the Latin America Institution, and the director of  Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute, have collaborated in a research team that has been organized by the Museum of Modern Art in the field of Latin American arts.

This edition of the  Greater New York was being prepared before the pandemic; but like any other biennials, it has been delayed. "The pandemic halted everything," Katrib said "when we got back to work everything had changed. We had changed. This show is about what happened."

The artworks in this show are presented in two styles of Surrealistic and documentary which might seem in conflict with one another, but here they complement each other. The show emphasizes the intergenerational artistic stage of New York City. Artists of different ages will be attending this event. Nine of those artists have passed away during the time of postponement. However, the youngest artist of the show is Kristi Cavataro who is about thirty. Here, less-known artists from the previous generations stand next to young and amateur ones. Ahmad Morsi is an Egyptian artist who's associated with 20th-century Egyptian art; Hiram Maristany is a photographer that started filming "Spanish Harlem" in the 1960s and E'wao Kagoshima is a painter whose uncategorized works have brought him a bunch of fans. Some young and emerging artists are also among the participants. Raha Raissnia (b.1968) and Hadi Fallahpisheh (b. 1987) are Iranian artists participating in the Greater New York show.

Fallahpisheh is attending this edition of Greater New York with "The Truth Has Four Legs" series. He lived alone in New York City for a year and during that time he created photographs without a camera inside his garage. These images are the results of the artist's encounter with the public's perception about his identity and social space that has been formed due to the anti-immigration policies in the United States of America.

Previously, other Iranian artists have also participated in the Museum of Modern Art  PS1 (MoMA). The works of Maryam Hoseini  have been presented twice in the "Night at the Museum" group show in 2016 and "Body Armor" in MoMA in 2018.