Khosrow Hassanzadeh (born 1963 in

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

) is an Iranian painter. He is known for his "Terrorist" collection.

Life and career

Hassanzadeh was born in 1963 in

, to a working class Azerbaijani family who were fruit-sellers. He was just 17 years when the Iran-Iraq war broke out, and he dropped out of school and enlisted in the Basiji militia, but was subsequently obliged to remain as a conscript. When he returned from the war, he chose to work on themes that reflected his experiences of war. Following his return to civilian life, he studied art, enrolling in the Mojtama-e-Honar University (1989–91) where he studied painting and later at the

Persian Literature Persian literature ( fa, ادبیات فارسی, Adabiyâte fârsi, ) comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources h ...

at Azad University (1995–99), both in Tehran. His art teachers advised him to "draw small" so that his work would be marketable, but he ignored this advice. From the outset, he was determined to paint large

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

s and posters. He first exhibited in the 1980s, but only gained international recognition with ''War'' (1998), a grim and trenchant diary of his own experiences as a volunteer soldier during the Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988). In Ashura (2000) a 'women-friendly' interpretation of the most revered Shiite religious ceremony, he depicted

chador A chādor ( Persian, ur, چادر, lit=tent), also variously spelled in English as chadah, chad(d)ar, chader, chud(d)ah, chadur, and naturalized as , is an outer garment or open cloak worn by many women in the Persian-influenced countries of I ...

-clad women engulfed by religious iconography. ''Chador'' (2001) and ''Prostitutes'' (2002) continued his exploration of sociological themes particular to Iran's hyper-gendered urban landscape. The latter paintings used police mug shots to pay tribute to sixteen prostitutes killed by a serial killer in Mashhad, a religious capital of Iran. The paintings were created after filmmaker

Maziar Bahari Maziar Bahari ( fa, مازیار بهاری; born May 25, 1967) is an Iranian-Canadian journalist, filmmaker and human rights activist. He was a reporter for '' Newsweek'' from 1998 to 2011. Bahari was incarcerated by the Iranian government fr ...

commissioned Hassanzadeh to create a poster for his film, ''And Along Came a Spider''. In ''Terrorist'' (2004) the artist questions the concept of 'terrorism' in international politics by portraying himself, his mother and sisters as 'terrorists'. Unlike many of his contemporaries who have left Iran, Hassanzadeh has chosen to continue to live and work as an artist in Iran. He is currently based in Tehran, where he works as an actor, visual artist and ceramist. His work featured in many exhibitions in Europe and the Middle East. ''Time'' magazine described him as one of the country's "hottest" artists.

Work

His works often deal with issues that are considered sensitive in Iranian society and therefore he is frequently referred to as a 'political' artist or 'pop' artist. Scholars have described his style as somewhere between ''dissident'' and ''regime art.'' The artist, himself, calls his work "people's art" because it deals with social issues that affect everyday people. His work is influenced by the Saqqa Kaneh movement and traditional Iranian art. He has had solo shows in

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, Phnom Penh, and

. His work is held by the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, the

Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, ( Persian: موزه هنرهای معاصر تهران), also known as TMoCA, is among the largest art museums in Tehran and Iran. It has collections of more than 3,000 items that include 19th and 20th centur ...

, the

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and the

Tropenmuseum The Tropenmuseum ( en, Museum of the Tropics) is an ethnographic museum located in Amsterdam, Netherlands, founded in 1864. One of the largest museums in Amsterdam, the museum accommodates eight permanent exhibitions and an ongoing series of tem ...

. Hassanzadeh works primarily with painting, silkscreen, mosaics and mixed media. Select list of works * ''Early Paintings,'' series, 1988–1998 * ''Mother,'' pastel on paper, series, 1988 * ''Do I Have to Sign,'' oil on canvas, 180 X 120 cm, 1999 * ''Ashoura'' installation (collaboration with Sadegh Tirakhan), exhibited at TMOCA, Summer, 2001 * ''Terrorist,'' a four piece series, 2004 * ''Ya Mi Modal,'' silkscreen and oil on paper, 200 x 200 cm, 2008 * ''Ready to Order,'' mixed media, 215 X 135 X 28 cm, 2009 * ''Dome'' mosaic, ceramic plate, 2010 * ''Remember,'' mixed media on ceramic tile, 2010 "Khosrow Hassanzadeh Celebratres Traditional Murals and Figures," ''Art Observer,'' 2 April 2012
Online:
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Literature

*Shatanawi, Mirjam, ''Tehran Studio Works. The Art of Khosrow Hassanzadeh''. London: Saqi Books, 2007. *Shatanawi, Mirjam, 'The disquieting art of Khosrow Hassanzadeh', in: ''ISIM Review'' 18, Autumn 2006, pp. 54–55.

References

External links

Examples of Khosrow's work at Nafas art magazine

Life and career

Work

Literature

See also

References

External links

Further reading