Pocket Folklore

This book revolves around Matter and Mind by Japanese artist Noriyuki Haraguchi, permanently installed at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art since the museum's inauguration in 1977. The sculpture consists of a steel basin filled with used engine oil. Visitors gradually started throwing coins and other things into the pool over time, turning it into an unwilling wishing well. Forty years on, Shirin Sabahi invited Haraguchi to restore his pool. The book includes a previously unpublished booklet by the museums first chief curator, which follows the logic of the project, where Sabahis films, Haraguchis sculpture, and the sunken objects it holds sequentially encase one another.
Contributions by Negar Azimi, David Galloway, Media Farzin, Farnoosh Fathi, Adam Kleinman and Sissel Tolaas, edited by Edit Molnár, Shirin Sabahi and Marcel Schwierin