Islamic clothing rules - or maybe more profound taboos - impose restrictions on how the human face is shown in an iranian poster. It is interesting how the graphic designers cope with this challenge, in movie posters for example, or in advertising. I noticed that also many artist posters avoid the blank stare from face to face and put some sort of veil between viewer and subject. Anyway, having seen the pictures in the streets, I look differently at iranian portrait posters, and also at the Self-portrait exhibition that was organized in Tehran just before the Biennial.

Movie poster

Movie poster

Movie poster

Election posters

Election posters

TV news speaker

Publicity for a wedding shop

Publicity on the side of a bus for a vacuum cleaner, in Kashan

A religious poster outside a mosque, taken through the reflecting windows of our bus.

Morteza Momayez, Tribute to Pablo Neruda, 1983

Morteza Momayez, Tehran international contemporary drawing exhibition, 1999

Morteza Momayez, After 3000 years We Iranians, 2002 (Portrait of Afsaneh Momayez)

Reza Abedini, Poster exhibition, 2003

Majid Abbasi, for the 100th anniversary of Sadeq Hedayat's birthday, 2002

Navid Ghaem Maghami, poster for a student competition on Identity, 2003

S. Mohsen Hosseini, Young poet night, 2003

S. Mohsen Hosseini, Young poet night, 2003

Iraj Esmaeilpour, 4th theater comm. festival, 2003

Ghobad Shiva, 36 days with Sadegh Hedayat, 2002

Intro

Winners

My choice

Morteza Momayez

Posters & designers

Biennial

Accompanying Exhibitions

Street graphics

Summary