Parastou Forouhar, untitled, from "Schuhe ausziehen", 2001/02, Deutsche Bank Collection
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Parastou Forouhar, untitled, from "Schuhe ausziehen", 2001/02, Deutsche Bank Collection
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Parastou Forouhar, Tausendundein Tag, detail, Die Macht des Ornaments, Belvedere, Wien, 2009, Courtesy Galerie Karin Sachs, München/ Parastou Forouhar
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Parstou Forouhar , from: Series II , Tausend und ein Tag, 2009, Courtesy Galerie Karin Sachs, München/ Parstou Forouhar
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Parastou Forouhar, Dokumentation, installation view, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 2001, Courtesy Parastou Forouhar
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In an interview for ArtMag in the summer of this year, the Iranian artist Parastou Forouhar said she still had hope that the political situation in her home country would improve. Recently, however, the artist was blocked from returning to Germany, where she has lived since 1991. At Teheran Airport, her passport was confiscated and the Ministry of Information arraigned her. In the meantime, friends of the artist have launched a solidarity campaign on Facebook: members of the social network were asked to replace their profile picture with a portrait photo of the artist in order to heighten public awareness of the case.
The reason for the legal charges against her is the ceremony she holds every year in Teheran to recall the fate of her parents, leading Iranian oppositional members who were brutally murdered in 1998. "The ceremony was declared illegal," she said in an interview with ArtMag. "but we insist on our right and we proclaim it. And then the security forces come early in the morning and barricade the streets. They install cameras and cut off the mobile phone networks in our quarter. We are not allowed to leave the house. This has been the case for the past five years." This year, the Iranian authorities even prohibited her from receiving close relatives and friends at her parents' home, as Parastou Forouhar made public in interviews with foreign radio stations. For the Iranian regime, this is apparently a welcome pretext to prevent her from leaving the country and take legal action against her.
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