Untitled

This work was produced by Farhad Moshiri in 1998, on the eve of his recognition as an international contemporary artist, before he started painting his Jar (see LOT 22) and Numbers/Letters series (see LOT 21). LOT 44 is one of the few early works by Moshiri to come to the market and is part of a series of ten which he realised in the 1990's. Having never been exhibited to the public, these are very rare and precious, yet they already translate the artist's ingenuity in combining art historical and traditional Iranian elements with images of pop culture and contemporary society. Comprising of an eclectic collage of books, posters and kilims, Moshiri purposely makes uncanny visual juxtapositions so as to engage the viewer into the work, forcing him to interpet it in his own way. The kilim fragment which is the flat-woven carpet with bright geometrical patterns at the centre of the composition, originally made in Iran, Turkey, Kurdistan and neighbouring countries, contrasts with the car crashing underneath it as well as with the gun above it, both images most probably deriving from posters of Hollywood movies. Being a multi-purpose object in Iranian and Islamic cultures, ranging from being used to store family wealth to being a prayer rug for Muslims, Moshiri confronts this iconic carpet with Christian iconography, represented by the Crucifixion of Christ at the centre left of the composition, a recurrent theme throughout art history, particularly in the West. Furthermore, the predominance of the eyes in this work not only directly provokes the viewer but also translates the artist's role as an observer and witness of the encounter, whether it be concordant or conflictual, between Eastern and Western cultures. At the same time, the way the eyes are depicted inevitably hint to the traditional niqab or veil worn by some Muslim women, covering their entire body, yet leaving the eyes visible which therefore become their only sign of identity to the outside world. This image of the woman, very frequent in the Middle East, is the opposite of that depicted by the Western world, where femininity is put forward as much as possible. There used to be a book attached to the piece of paper in the lower left corner of the composition which had disappeared when the present work was re-discovered, yet this fabulous masterpiece by Moshiri already announces the artist's interest in Western pop culture, which he would later use and re-invent to create his own pop imagery fused with cynicism and Iranian culture.