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Ardeshir Mohassess and His Images of Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Ali Banuazizi*
Affiliation:
Boston College

Extract

Ardeshir Mohassess has often been called Iran's leading caricaturist and graphic artist. Yet, as the powerful images on the following pages show, neither appellation fully describes the breadth, depth, and complexity of his art and vision.

The artist himself also defies simple description. Through his art one sees him as a man of sharp and angry perception who wields his sarcastic pen mercilessly--decapitating bodies, twisting them into unnatural shapes, turning the world upside down, all in an attempt to expose the bitter truth that lies, he seems to feel, under the banal surface of everyday reality. In person, Mohassess is a remarkably sensitive, humble, and mild mannered artist with a philosophic sense of humor which focuses, not on the foibles of particular individuals, but on what he finds to be pathetic or absurd in the human condition.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1984

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Footnotes

This article is based on interviews, conversations and correspondence with Ardeshir Mohassess over the past three years. I am very grateful to him for sharing his thoughts and feelings about his work and life so generously.