THE JUXTAPOSITION IS WHERE IT’S AT WITH THESE PIX.  STUDENTS ALWAYS HAVE A TON OF QUESTIONS WHEN WE WALK BY THESE IN THE GALLERIES AT LACMA.  SHE RE-CREATED THE DATED SETS BUT WHAT’S INTERESTING IS THAT MOST VIEWERS (including me) ASSUMED THEY ARE OF TODAY.  BUT SHE ACTUALLY PURPOSELY PLACED THESE WOMEN IN THE STUDIO RECONSTRUCTION, EMPHASIZING HOW THEIR ROLE IN HER CULTURE HAS ALMOST BEEN FROZEN IN TIME.  THE WORLD HAS CHANGED, AS THE MODERN OBJECTS ILLUSTRATE, BUT THEY ARE STILL BOUND TO PAST CONCEPTIONS OF A WOMANS ROLE, YET THEY HOLD ALL THE TOOLS THAT SHOW WAYS THAT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME BY THERE MERE PRESENCE AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD OUTSIDE THESE CONCEPTIONS.

Ghadirian has said of her work, “My pictures became a mirror reflecting how I felt: we are stuck between tradition and modernity.”

The photographs presented in this installation at LACMA are from a series of thirty-three portraits by Shadi Ghadirian, a contemporary artist who was inspired by the studio portraiture first introduced to Iran in the late nineteenth century under the Qajar dynasty (1794–1925).

In order to re-create the earlier setting, Ghadirian employs painted backdrops and dresses her models in vintage clothes to emulate the fashion of the day: headscarves and short skirts worn over baggy trousers, as well as thick, black eyebrows. She adds modern elements to these traditional scenes, such as a Pepsi can, a boom box, a bicycle and an avant-garde Tehran newspaper.