Tired of the garish and the gruesome? Need an escape from shopping, parties and Andy Williams? Sometimes a culture experience is all about context. And the promise of solitude and quiet beauty is all the more tempting when there is so little of it to be found in the day to day.
You might have your own favorite holiday retreats, but let me recommend a new one for this season. Marquette University is relatively quiet these days. Parking is easy. And the Haggerty Museum—at least during my weekday visit—is a haven of stillness.
Not incidentally, there are two fine shows on view through January 17th. “Persian Vision: Contemporary Photography from Iran” is a survey of contemporary photograph ranging from topical photojournalism to creative revisions of Iranian life. Shahriar Tavakoli’s domestic scenes (of his own family) zero in on elements of family life, but set the people and props against a black backdrop, distilling them as if they were pictures from a stage play. Ahmad Nateghi has a bra
sh, Life Magazine style that highlights Iran’s consumer culture. Arman Stepanian shoots elegiac compositions that suggest the mourning and loss of not only individuals, but the eclipse of a more solid, substantial culture. 
The most interesting photographs were those that aspired to painterly abstraction. Mehran Mohajer creates color-field-like compositions using printed arabic text and blurred video stills from television, and the result is an eerily beautiful take on the chaos of communication in the contemporary world. Bahman Jalali looks back, embedding archival photographs and images in swirling compositions that seem like the chaos of history itself.
The idea behind "Pairings," the other Haggerty show, is simple. Find two similar paintings or sculptures from the collection and display them side by side. But instead of finding works th
at share an "-ism" or a particular decade and location, the curators link the paintings by subject. Here there’s a collection of a dozen or so male portraits that range from playful illustration (Saul Steinberg) to the staid solemnity of an 18th century landholder. Elsewhere, a pair of Madonnas, one abstracted and the other set against architectural geometry that connects the paintings across the centuries.
Who knew that Art History 101 could be so much fun.
