ABBookness & StudioKargah are pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition titled “Fereydoun Ave: Designer”, a retrospective and book launch event, curated by Ali Bakhtiari and Aria Kasaei.
The exhibition centers on Fereydoun Ave’s works in the domain of design, including graphic design, set and costume design, interior and furniture design from 1960 till present.
Fereydoun Ave was born in Iran in 1945. He graduated from Arizona State University in “Applied Arts for Theatre” and studied “Film Aesthetics” at NYU. He came back to Iran in the late 1960’s and collaborated as the art director and designer with the Iran America Society, National Iranian Radio and Television, the Theatre workshop, the Shiraz Festival of Arts and Zand Gallery. The result of the above collaborations was a series of poster and brochure designs, set and costume designs for theatre and installation design of many exhibitions.
He left Iran after the 1979 revolution for Paris and returned after about a decade. He later transformed the swimming pool of his Tehran house into a space for exhibiting his furniture and interior designs as well as artworks of other artists. He turned a small space in the garden of this house into an art gallery named “13 Vanak St” and held exhibitions there until 2005.
In recent years he divides his time between Iran, France and Greece. Ave continues to create paintings, photographs, and sculptures and his works are collected by the British Museum, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts, The Metropolitan, Centre George Pompidou, the Lloyds Bank Swiss Collection, and the Cy Twombly Foundation.

About the curators:

Ali Bakhtiari started his career in 2008 by curating “A Retrospective of Faramarz Pilaram” in Gallery 66 in Tehran. He has since curated exhibitions and events internationally in renowned galleries such as Saatchi Gallery in London, Leila Heller Gallery in New York and Lawrie Shabibi Gallery in Dubai. Bakhtiari currently runs an independent art project called “ABBookness" which focuses on the production of artist books. Two volumes of his ongoing project, “IRAN: RPM” which is a study on Persian discography titled “Filmfarsi Soundtracks” and “Kanoon” are already published.

Aria Kasaei co-established Studiokargah in 2001 with Peyman Pourhosein in Tehran. Studio’s focus is to collaborate with artists, galleries, museums, theatre ensembles and publications. He is the artistic director of Azad Art Gallery graphic project, Mohsen Gallery and Tehran Design Week 09. He is active on collecting, researching and writing about Iranian graphic design history.

“Fereydoun Ave: Designer” is the second collaboration of the curators and their projects after “Assur Banipal Babilla; A Retrospective” in 2013.