Ava Gallery

Behrang Samadzadegan

Curator

Behrang Samadzadegan was born in Tehran in 1979. He received his BFA from the Tehran University of Arts and his MFA from Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran. He has been a PhD candidate in the Art Practice programme at the Vienna Academy of Arts. His studio practice moves between painting, sculpture and installation, drawing from images and narratives of contemporary Iranian history combined with fictional stories and found sources — literature, Chinese toys, commercial illustrations, photographs. He questions normative values and systems of authority, and examines cultural and social identity through the aesthetics of painting. The image of history, he has written, is a personal matter: "a combination of confusion, chaos, and a futile quest for reaching unattainable truth." As a critic and curator he writes for art journals and has organised numerous exhibitions. He has been represented by Leila Heller Gallery in Dubai and shown internationally across Iran, Austria, the UK, the United States, Georgia and Australia. He has received residencies at Spike Island in Bristol, Atelierhaus Salzamt in Linz, and the Cleveland Foundation Creative Fusion Artists Program. He curated Now, Still We Gather at AVA Gallery, Alserkal Avenue in 2026.