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Fereydoun Ave

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Fereydoun Ave
فریدون آو
Born1945 (age 79–80)
Tehran, Pahlavi Iran, (now Iran)
EducationArizona State University,
New York University
Occupation(s)Visual artist, curator, gallerist, art collector
Known forPainting, graphic arts, printmaking, mixed media collage

Fereydoun Ave (born 1945; Persian: فریدون آو) is an Iranian art collector, curator, painter, and sculptor.[1][2] Over the past five decades, he has taken on many different roles as artist, designer, art director, collector, curator, gallerist and art patron. He has had over 21 solo exhibitions as an artist and curator. Prior to the Iranian Revolution, he worked as a stage and graphic designer at the Iran American Society in Tehran, was Resident designer for the National Theatre, Tehran, and was advisor to National Iranian Television and the Shiraz Arts Festival. Between 1974 and 1979 he was acting artistic director of the Zand Gallery in Tehran. After the Revolution, in the 1980s, he created his own alternate space, 13 Vanak Street, which became an influential communal art space for emerging Iranian artists.[3] He also worked at the Hayden-Zand Gallery in Washington State, USA.[2]

The art of Fereydoun Ave is a freehanded engagement with a personal ethos informed by larger cultural influences. He ceaselessly reflects on various facets of his relationship with age, myths, plants, elements, seasons, moods, and heredity. He takes inspiration from the art of Iran, which tends to use the entire surface of the canvas, and the Western penchant for minimalism, which leaves large swaths unattended.[4]

Fereydoun's contemporaries include Bijan Saffari, Ardeshir Mohasses, Hossein Zenderoudi, Ghasem Hajizadeh, Behjat Sadr, Nazi Atri. He was influenced by his friend and mentor Cy Twombly with whom he had a 40-year relationship, sharing a studio at several points in his life[5].

Works of Fereydoun Ave have been featured in numerous solo exhibitions along with hundreds of group shows in galleries and museums around the world. Other than many notable private collections, works of Fereydoun Ave have been acquired by prestigious art institutions like the British Museum in London, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Cy Twombly Foundation, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art & The Carnegie Museum of Art[6].

Early Life and Education

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Ave was born in Tehran to a Zoroastrian family from Yazd. His father was a merchant from Yazd who traveled between there, Bombay and London. At the age of eight, he was sent to boarding school at King School in Sherborn Park England in England.[7] He initially enrolled in Arizona State University for agriculture, before switching to receive his BA degree in applied arts for theatre in 1964. He then studied film at New York University (1969), and attended the Semester at Sea (1964).[8]  

Fereydoun has often reflected on his identity as a Zoroastrian minority amidst the backdrop of an increasingly Islamic conservative Iran after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. His nostalgic longing for his idyllic childhood was the basis of his work Endangered Species, which featured three generations of his family layered among texts, fade-ins, and other mixed media.[9] The disconnect he felt between himself as a Zoroastrian and the Islamic Republic led him to return to Persian antiquity for connection, leading to his Rostam and Sohrab Series, from the Persian epic, the Shahnameh.

Career

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Ave began his career in theatre, as graphic designer, and sets, costumes, and lighting designer for productions at City Theater of Tehran since its establishment in 1971. At the time, he was one of the only people in Iran that had a bachelors in theater-arts, which enabled him to get brochures, makeup, lighting, costumes and set design. His first teacher and art director there was Douglas James Johnson. There He worked together with many who became later collaborators Arby Ovanessian, Bijan Saffari and Assurbanipal Babilla, who together created a central force for the development of Iranian Theater[5].

During this period in early 1970's Iran, Fereydoun was very involved in Tehran’s social scene, and hosted an open house attended by Keyvan Khosorvani, Farideh Gohari, Tony Shafrazi and Gans Myer. It was the seeds of this cultural gathering that led Fereydoun to accept his first role as Art Director for the Zand Gallery in 1977. Located in the A.S.P towers in Tehran, the Zand gallery became Tehran’s first true international gallery. He also had a large hand in creating the Behshahr Industries art collection.[5]

Over the past five decades, he has taken on many roles as an artist, designer, art director, collector, curator, gallerist, and art patron. His preferred method, which he has employed in many of his works, involves making collages with traditional Persian fabrics and printed images, overlaid with nearly chaotic lines in paint. Due to his acquaintance and close association with Cy Twombly, Ave has sometimes drawn direct influence from this artist, a fact he readily acknowledges.

As an artist, some of Ave's works are housed in prestigious museums worldwide, including the British Museum,[10] the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art[11] in New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art,[12] Victoria & Albert Museum,[13] and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.[14]

Solo exhibitions

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Ave has had solo exhibitions in amongst other:[15]

  • Large Works on Canvas, Plus 2, Tehran, 2024
  • For Nowruz, Underground Dastan, Tehran, 2024
  • Exhibition of Fereydoun Ave's Works, Fer Gallery, Tehran, 2023
  • Some Seasons: Fereydoun Ave and the Laal Collection, 1959–2019, Jameel Art Centre, Dubai, UAE[2]
  • A Retrospective, Emrooz Gallery, Isfahan, 2018
  • Homework, Dastan Gallery, Tehran, 2018
  • Bouquet Series, Dastan +2 Gallery, Tehran, 2016
  • Shah Abbas and His Servant, AB Gallery, Zurich, 2016
  • Souvenirs, Dastan Gallery, Tehran, 2016
  • Sources of Signs and Favorite Things, Sam Center, Tehran, 2015
  • Postcards from Iranistan, Shulamit Gallery, Los Angeles, 2015
  • Warrior's Rest, Amirun Technis, Cyklades, 2014
  • Four Seasons, Khak Gallery, Tehran, 2012
  • Sacred Elements: Wind, Rossi & Rossi Gallery, London, 2010
  • Radioactive Rostam, Janet Rady Gallery, London, 2010
  • Rostam in the Deadly Winter Cold, B21 Gallery, Dubai, 2009
  • Drawing Collection, Seyhoun Gallery, Tehran, 1990
  • Drawing Collection, Van der Straeten Gallery,Paris, 1990
  • Drawing Collection, Fereideh Kado Gallery, Paris, 1978
  • Collage Collection, Litho Gallery, Tehran, 1973
  • Seven Amesha Spentas, Iran-America Society, Tehran, 1973

Bibliography

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  • Fereydoun Was Not an Angel: A Conversation with Fereydoun Ave, 2018 , Dastan publications
  • Golestaneh, Ali (2012). Tehran Art: A Popular Revolution. Contemporary Art Publications. ISBN 9789948164746.
  • Don Rubin, Ravi Chaturvedi (1994). The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre; 1994
  • Alternative Iran; Contemporary Art and Critical Spatial Practice; Pamela Karimi, 2022, Stanford University Press, ISBN 9781503631816
  • Bibliography of Art and Architecture in the Islamic World; 2012, Brill, ISBN 9789047412076
  • Urban Culture in Tehran, Seyed Hossein Iradj Moeini,2017, Springer International Publishing, ISBN 9783319655000

References

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  1. ^ "Collections Online | British Museum". www.britishmuseum.org. Retrieved 2024-07-12.
  2. ^ a b c Farzin, Media (2023-11-01). "Grand Designs: The art of Fereydoun Ave". Artforum. ISSN 0004-3532. Retrieved 2024-09-04.
  3. ^ "Fereydoun Ave". Sahar K. Boluki. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  4. ^ "Fereydoun Ave". Dastan Gallery. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  5. ^ a b c Nazari, Sharouz (2018). Fereydoun Ain't No Angel (1st ed.). Tehran, Iran: Homa Gallery & Dastan Gallery (published November 2018). pp. 47–58.
  6. ^ "Fereydoun Ave | 19 February - 30 April 2023". Dastan Gallery. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  7. ^ "فریدونِ آوِ طراح". نشریه نشان.
  8. ^ "فریدون آو - هنرمندان". آرتچارت (in Persian). Retrieved 2024-04-23.
  9. ^ www.nextleveluk.com https://www.nextleveluk.com/article/endangered-species/. Retrieved 2025-01-15. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. ^ "drawing; print | British Museum". The British Museum. Retrieved 2024-07-12.
  11. ^ "Fereydoun Ave | Rustam in the Dead of Winter, 2009". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 2024-07-12.
  12. ^ "Fereydoun Ave | LACMA Collections". collections.lacma.org. Retrieved 2024-07-12.
  13. ^ "V&A Museum". V&A Collection. 2016.
  14. ^ "فریدون آو و شقایق‌ عربی؛ ریشه‌هایی که بی‌ریشگی را نمایش می‌دهند". BBC News فارسی. November 18, 2014.
  15. ^ "Fereydoun Ave | Darz". darz.art. Retrieved 2024-09-29.
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