Persian Visions: Contemporary Photography from Iran

Thirty years after the Islamic Revolution, “Persian Visions: Contemporary Photography from Iran” brings the work of 20 photographers to Milwaukee (at the Haggerty Museum of Art through Jan. 17, 2010). Despite cultural sanctions imposed by the United States, the show, organized by a professor from the University of Minnesota and the curator from the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, is the first of its kind to tour the States since the Revolution. For most Americans, exposure to Iran is purely negative, limited to the rants of its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” rhetoric. “Persian Visions” facilitates an “unofficial” cultural dialogue that transcends the mutual, “official” enmity and provides a normalized view of the Islamic Republic from within.