Iran’s Women Police Academy had existed for just two years in 2005 when Iranian artist Abbas Kowsari went to photograph a graduation ceremony. The women wore hijabs as they did things such as scaling walls, which is what they’re doing in the Kowsari photo on view in LACMA’s “Islamic Art Now: Contemporary Art of the Middle East”. Kowsari had to ask permission to take the photo, and it has an understated feeling: Four staggered figures in flowing black robes look as if they’re almost floating up a brick and concrete wall.

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