#political-exile

#political-exile

The Greater Los Angeles area is home to the largest concentration of people of Iranian descent outside Iran. Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, it has served as a capital for exiles. By 2019, more than half of Iranian immigrants to the U.S. lived in California, with 29% - nearly 140,000 people - living in Los Angeles County alone.

The path to the first New York solo show for Elda Cerrato (1930-2023), now on view at Galerie Lelong, was a long and winding one. Born in Italy to Jewish parents, Cerrato was a child when her family fled fascism in Europe for South America. Authoritarianism continued to shape her life in adulthood, as Cerrato and her husband and son were forced to leave Argentina to escape persecution at the hands of the country's military junta in 1973.

In a letter from prison, the 55-year-old said that since he was re-imprisoned in April after being briefly freed under a deal with former US president Joe Biden, the cruelty of the dictatorship towards me has known no bounds. He cited blows, torture, humiliation, threats and extreme conditions in prison, including the theft of food and hygiene products ordered by the regime's minions.