Previously Viewed

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This spring, the Contemporary Art Gallery is pleased to present Previously Viewed, a series of artist-curated film screenings. Inviting artists from CAG’s recent and upcoming programming to present films that have been formative to their thinking and practice in some way, each screening is a one-night-only event centered on a single feature-length work.

Abbas Akhavan has selected Before Night Falls (2000).

I first saw Before Night Falls in 2001 in the company of an unrequited love. The memory holds strong, as does the texture of the film and the writings of Reinaldo Arenas. While watching the film, I did not know that Julian Schnabel had made it, the camera licking every scene. Aside from the rich colours and textures I found the film and its soundtrack deeply atmospheric, hitting the right notes. Shortly after 2001 when I moved to Montreal, Fairuz's music carried me along the meandering long walks in nightly snow blizzards.

-Abbas Akhavan

Run time: 133 minutes.

RSVP

Registration for this event is encouraged; tickets are free. Secure your seat here.

Rush tickets will also be made available the day of the event, starting at 6:45pm.

Accessibility

This event will be held in CAG’s B.C. Binning Gallery, which is wheelchair accessible. Additional accessibility information can be found here. This film will be presented with closed captioning.

Biography

Abbas Akhavan’s (b. 1977, Tehran, Iran; lives/works: Montreal and Berlin) practice ranges from site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video, sculpture and performance. The direction of his research is deeply influenced by his engagement with the places in which he works – their histories and architectures, as well as the economies and inhabitants that shape them. The garden – and by extension, the spaces and species just outside the home, such as backyards, public parks and other domesticated landscapes – has been a foundational and recurring subject in his work. In recent largescale installations, Akhavan recreates cultural sites affected by international conflicts, attending to the multivalent ways in which ongoing geopolitics inform historical narratives. Akhavan’s work engages with formal, material and social legacies that define the boundaries between public and private, domesticated and wild, hostile and hospitable.

Upcoming and recent solo exhibitions include La Biennale Di Venezia (2026); the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2026); Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver (2025); Copenhagen Contemporary and Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen (2023). Recent group exhibitions include the Galleria Borghese, Rome (2026); Tate Modern, London (2025); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2024); 14th Gwangju Biennale (2023) and Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2022). Akhavan received an MFA from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver (2006), and a BFA from Concordia University, Montreal (2004). Recent residencies include Bangkok Kunstahalle, Bangkok, Thailand (2024); Fogo Island Arts, Fogo Island, Canada (2019, 2016, 2013) ; Capp Street Artist-in-Residence, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, USA (2019); Atelier Calder, Saché, France (2017); and The Delfina Foundation, London, UK (2012). He is the recipient of the Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Excellence in Visual Arts (2025); Fellbach Triennial Award (2017); Sobey Art Award (2015); Abraaj Group Art Prize (2014); and Berliner Kunstpreis (2012).