Abbas Kiarostami’s photographic works were presented for the first time in Italy by Noire Gallery in the personal exhibition (2000).
Kiarostami explains:
” I never really learned photography. During the revolution of 1979, it was impossible to make films, and I escaped from the city and found shelter in the countryside. I started making pictures, and they became like gifts to take back to people in the city. I could share the landscape with them through photography. I prefer the countryside to cities. This is also true of my films: I have made more films in rural societies, and villages, than in towns”.
The world viewed through the lens of Abbas Kiarostami’s stationary film camera consists of long, protracted shots interrupted by staccato incidents: the passing of a loud car, for example, or a moving pedestrian eclipsed by distance. His still photographs are also punctuated by the appearance of a single shrub, bird, car, or bicycle—each important annotations on the study of expansive scapes.
