Statement:

An installation of five stop-motion animations by Tala Madani is now on view in the collection galleries at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), accompanied by an audio guide recorded by the artist.

Simultaneously provocative, humorous, and disturbing, Madani’s paintings, drawings, and stop-motion animations create alternate realities that have surprising parallels with our own.

Born and raised in Tehran and based in Los Angeles, Madani makes work that offers a critical lens through which to consider themes such as patriarchy and xenophobia, informed by the sociopolitical contexts of Iran and the United States but specific to neither. Political cartoons and medieval art are among her references.

The early animations included in MoMA’s installation are populated by bald, middle-aged men who face humiliating and violent setbacks. To create a single minute of video, Madani paints almost 2,500 images in sequence on a single canvas or piece of wood, recording the process with a camera, frame by frame.

Brief in length and looped, the videos endlessly cycle through moments of hope and abjection, underscoring their existential and absurdist themes.