79.89.09 looks at two key modern moments – the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and Poland’s Solidarnosc movement in the 1980s – as a narrative strategy to read the recent past. Standing squarely as bookends to the two major geopolitical narratives of the last and current century – the communist project in the 20th and revolutionary Islam in the 21st – these two moments are explored through a print edition, an archive, a mirror mosaic, contributions to two consecutive issues of 032c, and a lecture touching on themes as disparate as monobrows, monotheism, The Beach Boys, and apostasy. 

The lecture has been presented at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; Triumph Gallery, Moscow; opening lecture of the 2009-2010 Studium Generale at the Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam; Zurich’s Corner College; the Bruce High Quality Foundation University’s Edifying series, New York; Nordic Embassies, Berlin; SPACE Studios, London; Belleville Biennale, Paris; ARGOS centre for art and media, Brussels; 10th Sharjah Biennial and NAK, Aachen.

For ARGOS’ Salon5 one day event, we invited Agata Jastrzabek to tell us about Sarmatism, Ryszard Antolak to speak about Wojtek the bear and the Polish refugees in Iran during World War II and screened Khosrow Sinai’s ’Lost Requiem’ followed by tasting of Persian and Polish delights.

Watch 79.89.09 talk

Read Tehran 1979: Paper, Participation, Politics contribution to 032c

Read Poland 1989: In Praise of the Normal, Methodical and Slow contribution to 032c

The publication 79.89.09 covers several topics discussed in the lecture.

Photo credits: 1st and 2nd photo by Kolya Zverkov, 11th by Maria Stauber,14th, 15th and 16th by Sven Goyvaerts.