Skip to content

Iranian Photography: Bahman Jalali and Gohar Dashti – MFA Boston

Gohar Dashti - Untitled

Gohar Dashti: “Untitled”, from the “Home” series. Image © Gohar Dashti. Source: MFA Boston.

Iranian Photography at MFA Boston Iranian Photography: Bahman Jalali and Gohar Dashti – Exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, presents approximately 20 works by two photographers, Bahman Jalali (1944–2010) and Gohar Dashti (born 1980). January 11 – July 12, 2020]]>

Source: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Bahman Jalali (1944–2010) and Gohar Dashti (born 1980) are bound together by their shared Iranian heritage, their teacher-student relationship and their commitment to infusing documentary photography with the power of imagination.

Jalali was a pioneering figure in 20th-century Iranian photography, widely known for documenting the Iranian Revolution (1978–79), the Iran-Iraq war (1980–89) and their aftermath. Produced late in his career, the evocative Image of Imagination series featured in this exhibition marks his departure from the rigorous fidelity of documentary photography. As an instructor at Tehran University of Art, Jalali mentored many artists, including Dashti, who studied with him in the 2000s. Dashti’s work, represented here by her recent Home series, records the contemporary world while introducing unexpected perspectives and staged elements that blur the line between fiction and reality.

Though visually dissimilar, Jalali and Dashti’s works both reflect on the political, social and cultural changes that the artists have witnessed, while also recording lives and stories too often overlooked. All of the works in the exhibition are on loan from a private collection.

Related content

Past and present Iranian Art at LACMA (exhibition, 2018)

Follow us on:

Iranian Photography: Bahman Jalali and Gohar Dashti – MFA Boston