Born
to an Azerbaijani family in 1963 in Tehran , Khosrow Hassanzadeh
spent most of his childhood in museums and cinemas - a refuge
from the busy streets of Tehran , where he sold bananas to
tourists near the National Museum of Iran. As a teenager he
volunteered to fight on the Iran-Iraq front, not expecting
that he would stay as a recruit for several years. When he
came back from war, having escaped death, he chose a discipline
that he always dreamt about: painting and poetry.
Like the children of martyrs and other war
heroes, he was allowed to further his studies. He enrolled
at the art faculty of Tehran , but two years later he abandons
the idea of academic training in arts, and eventually studied
Persian literature at the Azad University . Earning a living
by working as a fruit seller, he painted at night, in his fruit
stand after closing time on large rolls of wrapping paper.
Here on his fruit stall, he met his mentor and art teacher
Aydeen Agadshlou, a painter and former artistic advisor to
Queen Farah, patroness of the Arts. Under his guidance, Hassanzadeh's
love of paintings was transformed into an obsession, a true
direction, a vector of life.
His colorful paintings-drawings, on paper
used to wrap fruit are mostly figurative, depiction of saint-like
figures, musicians, dancers, wrestlers, mother, wife, children
or self-portraits with personal visual diaries or poetry covering
the images. Mysterious numbers, codes, symbols and collages
of wall paper are added to these compositions of patch-worked
paintings.
Khosrow started exhibiting in 1991 at Jamshidieh
gallery in Tehran , then at other Tehran galleries: Barg Gallery
in 1994, Bokhara gallery in 1995, Seyhoon Gallery in 2000 and
2002 and most recently at Silkroad gallery. He has worked with
a group of dynamic artists on several multi-media conceptual
installation projects, The Art of Demolition, Experiment 98,
and Children of the Dark City 2000. His career started to accelerate
fastly in London with his solo show at the Diaroma Art, followed
by Iranian Contemporary Art at the Barbican Center in spring
2001. Since then, Hassanzadeh has exhibited worldwide in leading
art galleries and his works adorn the walls of several public
collections such as the British Museum , London , The World
Bank in Washington DC and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary
Art.
His interesting personality and talent also
made him the focus of BBC2's Correspondent program, of several
documentaries by Maziar Bahar, of ARTE the cultural French
television and of FOCUS on Swiss TV.
The artworks on show are from the series
ASHURA, PAHLAVANS and CHADORS.
ASHURA collection reflects the traditions
of the bloody Shiite religious ceremony marking the death in
battle in 680 of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed
. The paintings were created with a silk screen printing technique
and use oriental style, large over 2 meters high vertically
hanging Kraft paper monotypes.
PAHLAVAN works are a series of massive silk
screen prints on paper of century-old photographs showing these
Pahlavans naked from the waist up, their bodies' strong and
supple, wrestling and posing. These noble wrestlers were very
popular characters in Iranian society, which believes in physical
strength but a humble mind.
The Pop Art style in the series CHADORS reflects
the liberal and rebel mind of the artist. It also reveals cultural
movements in Tehran such as saqqakhaneh (spiritual pop art)
where artists adapted popular imagery to comment on contemporary
Iran. Although Khosrow is branded a political painter (especially
for his series TERRORISTS, PROSTITUTES, DO I HAVE TO SIGN?),
the artist claims to be inspired by ordinary people, just like
him. Mostly revolving around women, the paintings represent
them at the edge of real world and imaginary world, revealing
more facets than just the veil.
Hassanzadeh who is inspired by both his surroundings
and by real events highlights through his works the diversity,
complexity and sophistication of the modern Iranian art scene
and society. Sometimes satirical, sometimes mystical - the
works of Khosrow Hassanzadeh are always powerful and striking.
In September 2006, the oeuvre of Khosrow
Hassanzadeh will be on view at the KIT Tropen Musuem in Amsterdam
. It is great pleasure and honor to welcome Khosrow in Dubai.
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