In 2016, the New Museum inaugurated a platform for the presentation of new video works by emerging contemporary artists titled Screens Series. Encompassing a combination of screenings in the New Museum theater and on monitors on the Lower Level, the series has presented artists working with a range of media—from 16mm film to computer-generated imagery (CGI). When the Museum closed in March due to heightened concerns around the spread of COVID-19, we featured selected videos by Screens Series artists online, bringing art to the public at home. We also expanded the series to include other single-channel videos by artists who have exhibited at the New Museum in the past several years.
“Screens Series Online: Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian” continues the New Museum’s Screens Series, a platform inaugurated in 2016 for the presentation of video works by emerging contemporary artists. The online series also includes single-channel videos by artists who have exhibited at the New Museum in the past several years. Rokni Haerizadeh’s work "Fictionville" (2009-2014) was presented as part of “Here and Elsewhere,” which was on view at the New Museum from July 16, 2014– September 28, 2014.///
Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian have lived and worked together in Dubai since 2009. Their joint practice offers an expanded view of the collective, as it constantly grows and contracts to incorporate a rotating cast of friends, writers, and artists. Their individual practices differ stylistically, yet they commonly offer subversive critiques of political and social issues. The exhibitions they conceive can be seen as insights into their daily practice, which reflect on rituals of living and working collaboratively.
Haerizadeh, Haerizadeh, and Rahmanian’s work "Dance after the Revolution, from Tehran to L.A., and back" (2020) draws from rich and varied histories of Persian and Arabic dance, and in particular, the figure of exiled Iranian dancer, choreographer, and entertainer Mohammad Khordadian. After the Islamic Revolution of 1978–79, Iran outlawed most forms of dance. Today dancing in public can be interpreted as an indecent act to be punished, but smuggled dance instruction video tapes by Khordadian continue to circulate and remain popular in Iran. In 2006, during a TV interview, Khordadian, who now resides in Los Angeles, came out as homosexual, becoming one of the few Iranian celebrities to do so. "Dance after the Revolution, from Tehran to L.A., and back" hones in on several traditional Persian Folk dances, belly dance, and American aerobics, and features numerous clips from Khordadian’s dance videos, which mix aerobics with traditional Persian dances, as well as 1920s Iranian cabaret. Known as the “King of Dance,” Khordadian often incorporates humor and bends gender roles, inspiring men to use movements traditionally reserved for women.
“Here and Elsewhere” was organized by the New Museum’s curatorial department, led by Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director, with Natalie Bell, former Associate Curator, Gary Carrion-Murayari, Kraus Family Curator, Helga Christoffersen, former Associate Curator, and Margot Norton, Curator.
You can enter the online display page via the following link:
https://vimeo.com/506175472
Artists
