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© ICY & SOT © Overamstel Uitgevers B.V. t/a Lebowski Publishers, Amsterdam 2016 © Front/back cover design & internal design: Cassandra Brinen LET HER BE FREE © Cover image: Icy & Sot, ‘Let Her Be Free’, Stavanger, Norway 2014

Foreword: Jess X. Chen (edited by Chas Shomura) ICY AND SOT Afterword: Steven P. Harrington & Jaime Rojo STENCIL ARTISTS FROM 2006-2015 All additional text: Steven P. Harrington & Jaime Rojo, Jess X. Chen

ISBN 978 90 488 2801 2 ISBN 978 90 488 2802 9 (e-book) NUR 640

www.icyandsot.com www.lebowskipublishers.nl www.overamstel.com www.brooklynstreetart.com

Lebowski is an imprint of Overamstel uitgevers bv

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, Foreword by JESS X. CHEN recording, or otherwise – without written permission from the publisher. Afterword by STEVEN P. HARRINGTON & JAIME ROJO FOREWORD

A thousand pieces of cut paper litter the floor of a studio. They are the remains of a stencil that peels off a wall to reveal a por- trait of an Iranian woman staring confidently into the horizon. Where once may have been her hijab­ now lingers a hundred birds about to take flight from a web of branches. When one bird soars the others will follow, signaling a great migration toward freedom.

Let Her Be Free is a foray into this woman’s story as she frees herself from restrictions in her country. It is also the lens through which we may view the remarkable journey of ICY (b.1985) and SOT (b.1991), two Iranian activist-artist brothers who fled the persecution and censorship they experienced in their home country in the hopes their stencil practice may bloom.

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6 7 in The Frog Park, and meet alcohol quickest way to share our vision. We dealers in secret to find enough beer could put them up quickly without to keep the evening burning. Above getting caught. Exhausted by feeling each hour would hover a cloud of silenced, we were inspired when we fear—a fear of the party being shut discovered a way we could be so down, the artists being persecuted immediately heard and seen.” for their public expressions, young lovers interrogated for holding The brothers didn’t know that what hands in the streets. What brought they were doing was called “street these young people together every art.” It was only after they bypassed weekend was the fact that no threat the firewall of Iran’s internet that could extinguish their hunger for they discovered the work of street self-expression. “We were never artists such as Banksy, MCity, and followers,” remembers SOT, “we just Blek Le Rat. Taking inspiration from had an uncontainable energy. The the politically-charged street work only people who truly understood going on worldwide, ICY and SOT Since the Islamic Revolution swept frustrated with limits to their rights; that were our friends.” ICY recalls, developed a stylistically raw icono- Iran in the 1970s, the fundamentalist workers feeling downcast because “We shared with them our fondest graphy that spanned themes such government outlawed any expres- there were no bars and only a few memories in Iran.” as child labor rights, freedom of sion that ventured outside the creative spaces for people to gather. speech, freedom to protest, and boundaries of its own propaganda. In addition, all public exhibits of ICY and SOT grew up in the north- anti-censorship. Their images were Religion itself is not the source of art, music, and culture had to be western city of Tabriz. Known as the animated by the curiosity and play- oppression; the spirituality of Islam approved by the Iranian government. “City of Firsts,” Tabriz is the pioneer fulness of children who had not yet provides beautiful culture, com- ICY and SOT remember, “Artists are of art and literature in Iran. Iran’s experienced the full restrictions of munity, and belonging for millions some of the people most affected first printing industry, publication daily life in Iran. of people. Rather, oppression in by Iran’s censorship as their entire house, library, and public cinema Iran has involved a few leaders and career is dependant on freedom of was founded in Tabriz. When ICY On typical Fridays mornings in Tabriz, a government that has twisted expression.” Since their adolescence, was 20 and SOT was 14, they SOT would help ICY hold up a stencil religion to secure power over ICY and SOT didn’t feel at home in started skating around the city with of a mother embracing a child who people’s lives. Though many resilient the current condition of their country. their friends, carrying their own clutches bold letters that spell out activists protested, the police stickers and one-layer stencils. “Peace” in Farsi. When one brother responded violently. It is no surprise that out of these They gravitated toward each other would push the paint through the cultural restrictions emerged a because no one else permitted them stencil, the other would keep watch Recalling his childhood, ICY remem- fierce counterculture. This is where to express themselves so freely. for police. When Monday morning bers, “Children are taught by their the story of ICY and SOT was born. Putting stickers and stencils up came, their art would be buffed parents to fear those in power If you spent the mid-2000s in Iran’s illegally in alleys, public parks, and cleanly off the city wall by a para- and stay out of trouble. The older underground scene, you’d hear even on the facades of abandoned military volunteer. The next evening, generation passed down their punk songs bursting from illegal buildings was their small way of the brothers would bring an original fears to the younger generations.” basement concerts, see ’s transforming their surroundings into piece to be wheat-pasted, such as a ICY and SOT observed discontent mere handful of skateboarders, a home. The brothers recall, “We little boy in prayer, on the eight-hour passersby in the streets: women musicians, and artists gathering chose stencils because it was the bus ride to the capital city of Tehran.

8 9 They’d spend the day skating around, a city does not reflect the diverse looking for the most public but safest experiences and opinions of its wall. When night fell, they’d quickly citizens, new faces must adorn its wheatpaste the piece. By morning streets. That when a society’s laws no the art would be painted over in a longer serve the human spirit, they coat of white. The cycle would repeat must be broken. ICY and SOT’s work itself a hundred times over. affirms that the call of the activist- artist is to operate on a higher moral In Iran, five-story images of state compass than the law and to paint leaders and religious symbols can publicly the truth that their society last for years, while ICY and SOT’s desperately tries to conceal. pieces would not last longer than 24 hours. While their work would quickly While the public dimension of ICY disappear from public view, its traces and SOT’s journey is aimed at truth, would be preserved in photography. creativity, and expression, the in- The brothers remember, “There was timate side is one of unconditional nobody documenting street art in brotherhood. Regardless of the Iran, so we had to quickly snap struggle or hardship, the brothers photos of our art the moment it was rose back up together, always ready done.” They would extend the life of to cut the next stencil. The support their art by posting photographs of of their parents was also a key part it to Flickr’s online street art com- of their persistence. SOT remembers, munity. Slowly, their work reached “When our parents found out their global audiences through social sons were beginning to do illegal media and art blogs. street art they became extremely concerned for our safety.” “We owe One may ask: why would these everything to our parents,” ICY brothers continue the pursuit of art remarks. “They would always be the at great risk to their well-being? In the first to organize a bail for us, but times they were caught putting up never once told us to stop pursuing a piece, the consequences included our art.” accusations of satanism, lashes, and short-term imprisonments. The Six years into their street art brothers confess, “One thing was crusade, however, the brothers knew always for certain: there was no that their capacity to wriggle out of better feeling than walking away imprisonment again and again was safely from a piece we just put up.” not infinite. In 2012, a solo show in Perhaps they also persisted because granted them U.S. visas they believed that what they were to leave Iran for the first time. The doing couldn’t possibly be a crime. brothers saw this as an opportunity That when the public imagery of to migrate to the US. Mere days

10 11 prior to boarding the plane, the artists in NYC. Opening on the same state of fear. They witnessed anti- hunger of the brothers to share with brothers faced an arrest that deeply day, the Tehran-NYC show was the black police brutality, experienced us a vision of equality and freedom. endangered their careers. They knew first time that thirty-five New York the country’s Islamophobia and then that once they left the Iranian street artists had their work shown xenophobia, saw the ways corporate When shone through with just the government would never kindly in Iran and that fifteen Iranian street capitalism bears power over every- right light, the thousands of holes welcome them back. artists showed their work in NYC. one’s daily lives, learned how gen- cut through the stencil could also This event continued ICY and SOT’s trification pushes people of color be called the stars. When the stencil Their migration continues a legacy dream of empowering street artists out of their neighborhoods, and is peeled away, it frees a segment of underground Iranian artists from their home country and bridging became aware of the devastating of the liberated world beneath the fleeing the cultural policing of their the two worlds. effects of climate change on the Earth. one we live in. What does freedom homeland for a future where they These new issues found their way look like? On a wall in Germany, may create art and live free of Although they found in the United into ICY and SOT’s work, as they con- freedom is the five-story-tall face restriction. ICY and SOT moved into States new opportunities for the tinued to use their art to advocate of a woman gazing back at us with a Brooklyn flat that was inhabited production and display of their for human rights. In stencils, ICY and dignity. Her skin is stenciled with by the Yellow Dogs, their old friends work, ICY and SOT observed and SOT have developed a lens to look communities of people protesting for from the underground punk music experienced great violence. In the violence in the eye, make compassion her existence. When you observe the scene in Iran. This flat was the place US, where private gun ownership visible, and champion struggle with journey of migrants, it is apparent where albums were written, novels rates are the highest in the world, grace: the paper stencil, hand-cut that freedom is a fire that no were born, parties were thrown-- ICY and SOT lost three of their best and held together by the thinnest of country can gift and that no prison this time, legally. Bound together by friends to gun violence. Their art slivers, is their most concentrated cell can extinguish. Its flame burns similar refugee journeys, everyone suddenly became a means of con- voice of resistance. wildly within us. When you ask ICY who lived in this flat became each tinuing the pursuits their friends and SOT, they say “Freedom looks other’s closest reminders of home. were unable to finish. Their powerful * * * like true happiness. If she existed, series of murals about anti-gun our work would be done.” In New York, painting and living ownership began appearing on The book in your hands has been alongside their friends, ICY and SOT New York City walls and even ille- made possible through the immense, ICY and SOT’s work cracks open a began to take the street art scene gally replacing bus stop ads. Ali, unfaltering love of ICY and SOT’s window into a world where children by storm. They were able to attend Arash, and Soroush are immortalized parents, the brothers’ chosen family, run free, women own all the choices their own shows in person for the within every stencil by ICY and SOT. their friends and supporters around in their lives, and there are no guns, first time. As they got invited to paint Their resilient spirits soar alongside the world who have found inspiration no borders, no hierarchies, and no larger and larger walls, their stencils the brothers, stretching toward the in their work, and the millions who war. You can catch glimpses of this increased in both complexity and dreams of which they all sang of have been affected by the art world in the pages that follow this breadth regarding sociopolitical con- and believed in when they left Iran. gathered here. The pages of this book one. Even if we may never live this tent. They started painting murals are bound by a decade of brother- vision in our lifetimes, ICY and SOT across the United States, Turkey, The brothers also observed that the hood, sweat, and blood. Its spine show us what it looks like to have Germany, China, Norway, and more, oppression, fundamentalism, and stretches six thousand miles across fought and dreamed beautifully. each piece now staying up for years persecution in Iran exist in the oceans and mountains, from Tabriz on end. With their new connections, United States as well, just in to Brooklyn. Its images are brought JESS X. CHEN they organized a joint show that different forms. The brothers saw to us by the tireless documentation artist, filmmaker, activist drew a constellation that connected that vast parts of the U.S. pop- of the brothers and their friends. Its street artists in Tehran with street ulation are not free and live in a pages are borne from the insatiable

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 “In Iran, everything has been censored for more than 25 years. We try to reflect the unspoken emotions of the

people around us in our art.” – Icy and Sot

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 “We felt like people could easily relate to the subjects we addressed if we used children to talk about them. We addressed issues like child labor, censorship and the violence of war. Some pieces just depicted the stressful reality and others depicted the subjects with a sense of peace that was absent

in their real life.” – Icy and Sot

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