If you want to be a somebody today it seems to be compulsory to hold down as many jobs as possible. It’s not about making ends meet, it’s simply to show that you’re good at everything. It’s impossible to be just an oscar-winning actor or just a World Cup final goal-scorer. It’s not enough.
Abbas Kiarostami is a fine example of this. An acclaimed film director, (his Wikipedia page shows a list of 19 awards and honours) he is also a poet, photographer, painter, illustrator, and graphic designer. I hope he manages to take some time off occasionally.
I don’t know a lot about Kiarostami but I went to his exhibition because I heard about his work in the movies and guessed that an exhibition of his photographs would be worth a go. The show is called ‘The Walls’ and unsurprisingly is a collection of pictures of walls.
I started off trying to understand the symbolism of walls. Here is a list of the first things that popped into my head; Facebook, Pink Floyd, the Berlin Wall, the Great Wall of China, 10 green bottles, back up against the… I realised once again I was reading too much into things. So I decided to just enjoy the photos instead.
I found the pictures really calming. This was helped by the fact that they are displayed in a quiet gallery set back from the busy streets.
The shadows and colours in this photo are especially peaceful. You can imagine that it was taken on a sunny spring morning. The wall itself is very ugly but with the way the shadow falls off the trees and the climbing plants invade, you stop noticing pretty quickly.
"The Imaginary Historian"
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