I Paint, Therefore I Am.
“… Among foreign artists who work in Rome following an ancient tradition, the Iranian artist, Mohsen Vaziri, is one of the most captivating figures, owing it to the path that his research pursues and the originality of his international paintings. “Space” is the most fundamental theme in his works. The concept is to retrieve the origin of thought, but neither in the metaphysics of a geometric form nor in a traditional image of nature, but in initiating a human experience.”
(G.C. Argan, Rome, 1976)
“… Vaziri discovers tranquility and harmony in Gustav Mahler’s music and particularly in his solitude with his country’s nature, with its soil and the contrast between its greenness and dryness.”
(Piere Restany, Tehran, 1977)
“… Some of these positions and movements are amazingly flexible and at the same time rough… poetic and on the contrary aggressive. These sculptures which have been created from piecemeal and cutting elements, attack the space while opening and tear it apart, devour the void and benefit from its positive and negative aspects.”
(Tony Maraeiny, 1978)
The above statements reveal a small portion of what was stated by European art critics about the appearance of a new talent in Iran’s art scene, around forty years ago. Before that, Vaziri Moghaddam participated in Venice Biennales with his “Sand on Canvas” paintings and succeeded to be admitted to the permanent collection of one of the world’s most important modern art centers (MoMA).
Vaziri’s "Sand on Canvas" paintings are a turning point in the world’s modern art. Unlike abstract painting which is formed by an artist’s action, and was initiated slightly before that time by American abstract expressionists, Vaziri Moghaddam’s sand works narrate the living experience of an eastern artist who does not insist on yelling about his country’s geography, and instead looks for a global language, illustrated with memories of his childhood.
After his "Sand on Canvas" series, Vaziri Moghaddam starts another exciting era of his art works, colorful pieces with countless movements in which once again he secretly talks about the multi thousand‐year‐old history of his country.
His “Fear & Flight” series represent the terrors and hopes of the contemporary human who has always been under annoyance from one side, and an unknown tenderness from the other. Wooden volumes of Vaziri Moghaddam with sharp serrated edges from one end and curved forms from the other attract and repel the audience at the same time.
Sharp pointed forms on a white surface, threaten the curved forms from one side and expel them from the painting’s worktop from the other side. Amongst this struggle on the surface of the painting, suddenly the abstract form of a solitary, abandoned and defenseless bird catches the eyes. A bird that has been ignored in the midst of all this fighting and battle, as if in this chaos he should stay strayed, homeless and unaware of what is happening to him.
The long and permanent presence of Vaziri Moghaddam in Iran’s contemporary art is so outstanding that it carries along with itself a great weight of his homeland’s modern art. In other words and to be more evident, it is noteworthy to remark that reviewing the second generation of Iran’s modern art without Vaziri Moghaddam, is almost impossible. Unlike artists of his generation, Vaziri Moghaddam has not been very active in the Middle Eastern art market and has actually created his art works in a more silent and descent atmosphere, but the key to his success is his continuity in creating art pieces to which he has allocated over seventy years of his life. He has been under the attention of critics since the very beginning, until he succeeded to win the European certificate of merit in 2005. Vaziri Moghaddam still paints as well as his youthful days, although we are not able to see the scratches of sandy surfaces anymore, but the delicacy of his colorful world still dazzles on canvas.
Morteza Ahmadvand
February 2015
