Catherine Millet's preface to Abbas Kiarostami's photographs republished in artpress

The French art magazine artpress has republished Catherine Millet's preface to Abbas Kiarostami's photography book 'A Window into Life' (Nazar, 2010) in its June 2021 issue (n°489). The text, originally written for the third volume of a trilogy including 'Wall' and 'The Doors', was never before distributed in France. Millet recalls collaborating with Mahmoud Bahmanpour, director of Nazar Editions, on a 2010 special issue on the Iranian art scene, which was presented at the Centre Pompidou where she had the opportunity to dialogue with Kiarostami. The Centre Pompidou is currently hosting a retrospective of the filmmaker and photographer until July 26, 2021, which prompted the republication. In her preface, Millet reflects on Kiarostami's systematic, frontal, static, and affectless photographs, comparing his approach to that of minimalist artists who delegate execution through precise instructions. She describes the images as allegories of the photographic device, with dark interiors serving as camera obscuras. Millet notes that the obscurity reveals more details than the distant landscapes, and that the viewer feels at home among the traces of human labor. She also shares a personal fantasy about the newborn's first encounter with light, and observes that in two photographs, female silhouettes return the gaze to the photographer, restoring his body.