Category: Los Angeles

Tomas & Ricardo

Tomas Benitez & Ricardo Duffy
All Rights Reserved
Copyright Shervin Shahbazi

Some time ago a couple of my good friends Tomas Benitez and Ricardo Duffy came to the gallery for a meeting. Tomas was the director of Self Help Graphics & Art for many years as well as a Los Angeles County Arts Commissioner and Ricardo is an artist who is known for his many public art installations as well as his wide range of artworks. It’s not often that you would get these two in a place with nobody else around, so I decided to have a mini photo session with them. This image is one of the pics from that day.

Sarah Elgart and Dancers

Sarah Elgart and Dancers
I photographed some of Sarah Elgart dances in the 1980s. Sarah has always been a very inspiring artist. Sarah’s choreography sets off my imagination with every move. She is one of the greatest artists I have known. This still was shot during one of the rehearsals.

©Shervin Shahbazi

With Chris Francis

With Chris Francis I

Don’t miss Chris Francis: Shoe Designer at Craft & Folk Art Museum! ‘Chris will be relocating his shop to the museum. Stop by to view the exhibition, meet Chris, and see him in action.” Click here to view the information about Chris Francis’ exhibition and up-to-date schedule on CAFAM’s website.

 

Featured photo: Chris Francis by Shervin Shahbazi

Charles Dickson

Charles Dickson, Planting the Fist

I took this photo of Charles Dickson while he was working on one of his pieces he created for Listen With Your Eyes at Morono Kiang Gallery.

The title of the artwork is Serving It Up and it was a great sculptural piece that was interactive. Listen With Your Eyes was an idea I came up with because both Eliot [Kiang] , the owner of the gallery, and myself love jazz and we had been talking about doing an exhibit inspired by jazz music. In order to make this happen I approached a diverse group of artists and had great conversations about how we can visualize our love of jazz into physical artworks that are created much the same way a jazz musician makes his/her music. The result was a Celebration of Jazz in L.A. that included a fantastic exhibit and other events that involved several institutions including California Jazz Foundation, Catalina Bar & Grill, Culture Ireland and several other venues.

If you like yo see more pics you can visit MKG’s website here.

The Birth of TehrAngeles

 

The Birth of TehrAngeles #5 © Shervin Shahbazi 1983
The Birth of TehrAngeles #5
© Shervin Shahbazi 1983

 
Iran became a headliner in the American mainstream media in the 1980’s. Everybody knew who “Komeini” was even though they could not even pronounce the name of the country – I-ran – let alone Khomeini!

This photo was shot at a demonstration in Downtown Los Angeles in 1983 during one of the lighter moments when the two masked characters put a smile on everybody’s face.

 

Note: If you like to share this photo- for non-commercial purposes- please include proper credits.

Once Upon A Time in Los Angeles

On Tuesday April 8, 1980 the majority of the Iranian population in the U.S. and specially in Los Angeles were students. Some were here before the Iranian revolution and many came after, but almost all were receiving money for school tuition and other living costs from back home. The U.S. government’s decision to block these particular funds had a very long lasting effect on the lives of a lot of young people. For some this might have even been a turning point. This was the beginning, if not the beginning of the end of a chapter in these students’ lives.

Once Upon A Time in Los Angeles has its roots in this day! It is one of my projects that’s been eating dust for so many years. I will be posting images from this project here and if you care to share any of them please include proper credit and links to the source.

Note: The featured image is a bad photographic reproduction of the from page of LA Times from a time when even Fax machines were not yet available for purchase! So please excuse the quality..

 

Iran Students' Funds Blocked Los Angeles Times Front Page April 8, 1980
Iran Students’ Funds Blocked
Los Angeles Times Front Page
April 8, 1980