Bahman Jalali

Born Tehran, Iran, 1944

Jalali is a self-taught photographer who graduated in economics. He worked as director of photography at Soroush Press, 1976–91, and since 1985 has been a teacher of photography at a number of universities in Iran. In 1997 he was one of the founding members of the Akskhaneh Shahr, the country’s first museum of photography,where he became a curator. In 1999 he was appointed a member of the editorial board of the bi-monthly journal of photography Aksnameh. During the Iran–Iraq war Jalali began doing photo-journalism and war photography for an agency in Paris and then continued independently. Subsequently his images of war were shown widely, notably in a number of solo exhibitions, 1982–4.Through his work Jalali explored many other subjects, including the 1979 Iranian revolution and the relationship between past and present, driven by his fascination with old photographs. As a master for the emerging generation of Iranian photographers, his works have been shown worldwide, including the second exhibition of conceptual art, New Art, at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, 2002; 12 Photographic Journeys – Iran in the 21st Century, SOAS, London, 2003; Contemporary Iranian Photography, Dubai, UAE, 2004; Photo-London, Royal Academy of Art, London, 2005; and a solo exhibition at Fundacio Antoni Tapies, Barcelona, 2007.