Festival of Arts, Shiraz–Persepolis / Kaveh Golestan, Prostitute

Please join us for The Polygon Gallery’s first education event in our new gallery and the second in our curatorial lecture series.

London curator VALI MAHLOUJI will discuss his unique curatorial think tank, Archaeology of the Final Decade, that has salvaged cultural materials related to recent Iranian history. He brings to light rarely seen documents about artistic activities that until recently have remained obscure. His talk will focus on the radical Festival of Arts Shiraz-Persepolis of music, dance, theatre, and performance held in Shiraz and the ancient ruins of Persepolis from 1967–1977. He will also discuss his work on the recovery dissemination of the seminal photographic series Prostitute by Kaveh Golestan, a series of powerful documentary photographs of residents of the red light district in Tehran, made before the neighbourhood was destroyed. Archaeology of the Final Decade makes vivid the intersections of art, society, feminism, law and religion, and the impact of social displacement and erasures on cultural memory and the present condition.

Vali Mahlouji is the founder of Archaeology of the Final Decade, independent advisor to the British Museum, and director of Kaveh Golestan Estate. His research has resulted in many international exhibitions including at Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Whitechapel Gallery in London, and currently a room at Tate Modern is dedicated to an Archaeology of the Final Decade’s Prostitute exhibition.

Co-presented with “to elaborate; discentre for curatorial projects”

Image: Kaveh Golestan, detail from Untitled, (Prostitute series) 1975-77, Tehran, © Kaveh Golestan Estate, Courtesy Archaeology of the Final Decade

Click below for the 1971 New York Times article Peter Brook Learns to Speak Orghast