Khosrow Hassanzadeh is a well-known contemporary artist from Iran, with a fascinating life story that has been the subject of various documentaries by BBC and Arte. His work featured in many exhibitions in Europe and the Middle East.
Hassanzadeh’s paintings often deal with issues that are considered sensitive in Iranian society and therefore he is frequently referred to as a ‘political’ artist. Hassanzadeh first 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-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. For an exhibition titled ‘West by East’ in Barcelona, he was invited to give his views of the West. He answered by looking at himself in a Western mirror, and seeing the way he was looked at. He presented a self portrait alongside portraits of his family members; each one identified by name, nationality, age and profession and all under the heading ‘Terrorist’, as they might be described on a ‘Wanted’ poster. For his latest series, Hassanzadeh has found initial inspiration in the shrines that can be found in the holy birthplaces of Imams and the tombs of martyrs. ‘Ready to Order’ is a collection of three dimensional large-scale boxes in which individuals both famous and unknown are immortalized in a flurry of flashing lights, plastic vegetation, and symbolic ‘found’ objects.