#leila-hekmat

#leila-hekmat

The title was spontaneous, impulsive. It was inspired by Kenneth Anger. He has two films with 'Rising' in the title - 'Lucifer Rising' and 'Scorpio Rising' - and I wanted to make something in this supernatural, surreal, occultist, exaggerated, fantasy world, like his films.

My connection with Fahrelnissa Zeid is incredibly personal. I was a painting student of hers in my mid-teens when I lived in Jordan, and she was a powerful presence in my life at that time.

Pahlavi pledged to lead a transition to a 'free and democratic Iran.' He called on President Trump to continue the American-Israeli military operation against Iran, in the hope of displacing a regime he decried for placing a 'sea of blood' between itself and its people.

The Islamic Republic, which killed hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and Syria, killed and tortured hundreds of thousands of Iranians in the most brutal way after all these years, and which now wants to have nuclear weapons: we, the Iranian people, who have lived with them for half a century, know how ridiculous their claim to be peaceful was.

The Duchamp exhibition at MoMA is encyclopedic, thought-provoking, and sometimes surprising. It spans the entire sixth floor and invites viewers to engage deeply with his work.

My parents fell in love with the Islamic Revolution when I was a baby and welcomed life under its strict religious rules. The Ayatollah's face stared down from the walls at home, a daily reminder of what was expected and what was forbidden. This included being gay, but by my teenage years I knew I was different from my peers, and began hiding my sexuality from my parents and the world outside.

Ali Sbeity painted vibrant portraits and landscapes of his rural hometown in Southern Lebanon, often sharing his works on his Facebook. He participated in numerous local arts exhibitions and created murals for schools in Beirut.

The Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts said on Saturday that at least 56 museums, historical monuments and cultural sites in Iran have been damaged over the course of the war, which began on February 28, state-run news media reported. The heritage sites damaged include the Qajar-era Golestan Palace in Tehran.

"The mass and systematic killing of citizens who bravely took to the streets to bring an end to an illegitimate regime constitutes an organized state crime against humanity," it reads. "The use of live ammunition against civilians, the killing of tens of thousands, the arrest and persecution of tens of thousands more, the assault on the wounded, the obstruction of medical care, and the killing of injured protesters amount to nothing less than an assault on Iran's national security and a betrayal of the country."

This targeting success surely owes much to advanced electronic surveillance and deep cyber penetration of Iran's weapons systems and infrastructure. But in this war, as in the 12-day war last year, Israel and the United States are obviously benefiting from intelligence from some Iranians themselves, who are willing to risk their lives to help bring down the Islamic Republic.

The Lower East Side institution's OMA-designed, $82 million expansion debuted this week to mixed reviews, reflecting a range of opinions on its new look and functionality.

Imagine the pressure. You want to compete at your best, but then before even the game starts you have to decide how you're going to stand, how you're going to look and what you're going to do. I just think that's so unfair. The players were confused about what to do. If they salute and sing the national anthem, they are embraced and endeared by the government. If they do that, the fans, the Iranian people hate them.

Distance does not soften the terror. It only deepens my helplessness. In moments like this, I realize that geography is not measured in miles, but in attachment. War rearranges distance. These days I find myself returning to "The Conference of the Birds," the 12th-century poem by Attar of Nishapur, seeking meaning through ancient wisdom about spiritual journeys and transformation.

There is a scene in "Morgenkreis | Morning Circle" (2025), a 16-mm film by Berlin-based Palestinian artist Basma al-Sharif, that unfolds at the threshold of a daycare center. A young boy clings to his father, his fists locked into the fabric of his coat, his arms wrapped tightly around him. The father gently tries to pry himself free while a daycare worker crouches nearby, attempting to distract the child and coax him inside. It is an ordinary moment, one that anyone who has ever been a child - or cared for one - recognizes instantly, as well as the gut-wrenching feeling it provokes.

the artist's newest body of work responds to an urgent question precipitated by the catastrophic events of the past year: What does one do when the world collapses? The works attempt to make sense of her experience of the fire and its enduring aftermath, while continuing her exploration of the poetics of loss, displacement, and migration. Kahraman views these works as an offering, a libation, to a burning world.

find one another in the dark,

"The show is about giving the pen back to the writer, giving the paintbrush back to the artist, during this time of genocide," the Ridikkuluz told Hyperallergic in an interview at the gallery. "And when there's been so much censorship, these are artists that might not have been able to do this anywhere else."

The quadrennial exhibition introduces a new type of transnational, transdisciplinary program to Doha, rooted in issues that affect both Qatar and the wider region. The artists exhibiting broadly represent the diverse nationalities that live in Qatar, while their work reflects the shared geographical, environmenta

Known most for her large-scale artworks created from vast, intricate networks of thread, she developed her unique practice to make tangible the endless speculative configurations of human connections - something to be experienced rather than defined. But by asking her to describe her new exhibition, Threads of Life at the Hayward Gallery, I'm dragging her back into a reductive world of language. "If I wanted to express myself in words, if I could explain in words, I'd rather write," she says. "So I want to build visually, and I want to create visually. What I want to describe is beyond words."

The poem itself is an allegory: a gathering of birds set out on a spiritual quest, each one embodying a particular human flaw or attachment. Passing through seven symbolic valleys, they face trials and moments of revelation, before realising that the divine presence they seek lies within themselves. That sense of pilgrimage carries into the gallery. You are invited to take your own quiet journey through a wide range of avian-themed artworks inspired by the poem, each offering a different response to its ideas.