W.M. Hunt

 #somereallygoodones, #azadehakhlaghi, #iranianphotography, #eyewitness 

An image like “April 27, 1975“ by Iranian artist, Azadeh Akhalaghi makes one gasp.  Who, what, where, etc?  This is an impossible picture.  

That is the artist’s intention I believe.  Reconstructing a murder scene from Iran’s twentieth century political history has a outrageous quality.  Not only was the original act being dramatized, restaged, but the assassination was itself unimaginable.  

The artist made a series of seventeen scenes for “By An Eye-Witness”; she is constructing a history for the camera.  These were made in the tradition of Renaissance history paintings and based on three years of research and a highly cinematic imagination.  These seem like production shots made in a letter box format, and the action catches an apogee of passion. In this case the background walls meet in a central vortex further energizing the action, the victim having been struck down but caught in mid-air.  

This photograph only exists as a photograph and a history.  It is not only a record but an important constructed memory..

It is hard to fathom what impact this might have on its immediate audience in Iran today to, in effect, be given your heretofore non-existent visual history.  Photographs, because they are traditionally reports or real events, have unexpected immediacy.  This feels like a news report.  Processing this is unfamiliar and complicated.  Hence the outrage.

Note a consistent detail in this series, that there is always a dark haired woman whose head is covered and she is actively witnessing the action.  She is always present, and like Alfred Hitchcock, this is the artist herself making a signature appearance.  

©2021

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