Produced in collaberation with Purdy Hicks Gallery and launched to coincide with the opening of his production of Mozart’s Così fan Tutte at the English National Opera, Abbas Kiarostami presented a series of photographic and film works that celebrate the poetry he constantly finds in inanimate things - rain, roads and trees...

For Kiarostami, trees are artists, interlocutors and companions.  They have remained an idée fixe in his body of work. “One of the earliest memories I have is driving in a car with my grandmother 30 or 40 years ago. She said, ‘Look at that one.’ I looked and I saw a solitary tree at the bottom of a hill. I said, ‘So what about it? It’s a tree.’ But she didn’t have any explanation. It’s about that. You cannot put it into words. From my very first photos when I first picked up a camera, I realised that trees had more significance for me than human beings,” he says. “I have always quoted Ibn Arabi, who says that ‘the tree is my sister’. I feel even more than this.”

Abbas Kiarostami is renowned for his role as a film director, screen writer and producer, most famously directing the critically acclaimed masterpiece A Taste of Cherry (1997).  However he is clear about the importance of photography  ‘One single picture could be the mother of cinema. That’s where cinema starts, with one single picture.’

He also exhibited the short, rarely seen, film Sleepers (first shown at the Venice Biennale in 2001).

Despite the disappointment that Kiarostami was not able to attend the opening of his exhibtion due to visa issues, the show was a success, and Candlestar look forward to collaberating with both him and Purdy Hicks Gallery in the future.

Press Release
Link to exhibition press cuttings
Statement by Abbas Kiarostami
Cosi Fan Tutte press release