Arghavan Khosravi: Black Rain

Arghavan Khosravi: Black Rain, the artist’s first significant museum survey, presents a comprehensive display of Khosravi’s meteoric trajectory from her student days, when she “doodled” on the pages of her Iranian passport, through her bold experimentations with multipaneled reliefs, to her monumental sculptures produced for this exhibition.

Known for weaving Persian motifs with surreal iconography, Khosravi deftly blends East and West, past and present, religious and secular, reality and fantasy, aligning the artist’s deeply-felt internal schisms and sense of paradox with the political strife of the present moment. According to the artist, “contradiction" is one word that sums up her work.

The artist’s life experiences—as a young woman in Iran, as an Iranian immigrant in the United States and, most recently, as an Iranian exile inspired by the Zan. Zendegi. Azadi. (“Woman, Life, Freedom”) protests—shape her artistic development. From reflections on misogynistic repression to creative articulations of self-empowerment, Arghavan Khosravi: Black Rain follows the arc of a prolific artist and her persistent quest for freedom.

Arghavan Khosravi: Black Rain is curated by Dr. Gannit Ankori, Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator of the Rose Art Museum and Professor of Fine Arts and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University.

This exhibition is generously funded by the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation and the Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence Award Fund. Additional support is provided by the Artist’s Resource Trust, a fund of Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, The Horseman Foundation, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, and Salman Al-Rashid—special thanks to Adam Green.

Media partner: WBUR