Iranian video artist takes 2015 work to Algiers festival
Iranian video artist Armin Amirian sent a 2015 piece titled ‘Coalition’ to the ninth International Festival of Contemporary Art in Algiers, where it opened on November 29 at the Mufti Zakaria Palace of Culture.
The short work, considered one of Amirian’s signature pieces, has travelled through several European and Asian collections over the past decade and picked up a handful of prizes on the way, ILNA reported.
Its companion video-art edition, ‘More than Coalition,’ produced in the same period, has now been given an exclusive slot at the Algiers event after curators earmarked it as “a core work” for this year’s program.
Festival managers said the screening was arranged jointly with Janet Rady Fine Art, a British contemporary-art house that represents Amirian’s portfolio abroad. The London gallery has been steering his overseas engagements, tapping into markets where digital installations have gained ground.
Algeria’s Ministry of Culture is staging the festival under the banner Beyond Boundaries, with Algerian curator Hamza Bounoua at the helm. The week-long gathering, which runs until December 6, is hosting artists from the Middle East, Africa and Europe, many of whom are showing experimental works that blur lines between video, performance and installation.
Amirian’s piece, built around themes of cooperation and rupture, sits comfortably within the festival’s attempt to “push borders”. One organizer said the Iranian work “carries a tension” that suited this year’s brief, noting that audiences in the capital have responded well to its pared-back structure.
The Algiers festival, now in its ninth edition, has been expanding its program to draw in more non-Maghreb voices.
Amirian, who has been steadily building his international profile since the mid-2010s, is expected to continue touring his video-art series next year as institutions court works that plug into digital-first exhibition formats.