The longest state banquet of the twentieth century.
Michael Stevenson revisits the site of an infamous week-long party held in 1971 by the Shah of
Iran amongst the ruins of the ancient Persian city of Persepolis. Reconstructing part of the temporary architecture built for the celebrations (itself now a ruin) Stevenson looks at this pivotal moment in Iranian history which led towards the subsequent cultural revolution.
In June 2007 Stevenson exhibited a reconstruction of one of the guest tents in its current state, at actual scale, at Art Basel 38. The publication is an expanded version of this Basel presentation. The project effectively returns this structure to Europe, but now as folly.
Described as an “anthropologist of the avant-garde”, Michael Stevenson (born in 1964 in Inglewood, New Zealand, lives and works in Berlin) investigates the mythology that surrounds renowned and controversial events which have been significant in the spheres of both art and politics.
Edited by Nav Haq and Elisa Kay.
Texts by Martin Clark and Michael Stevenson.
Published with the Arnolfini, Bristol.
published in 2008
English edition
12,5 x 16 cm (hardcover, dust jacket)
64 pages (48 b/w ill.)
ISBN : 978-3-905829-48-8
EAN : 9783905829488
sold out
