The Identity of Tradition: the Works of Sadegh Tirafkan
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172 Profiles The identity of tradition: the works of Sadegh Tirafkan Human Tapestry 10 60* 90CM - Edition of 6 It is perhaps a somewhat clichéd statement to Islamic dogmatism, Sadegh through his art sets introduce the work of the internationally recognised out to challenge this threat to the continuity of his Iranian artist Sadegh Tirafkan, by stating that he heritage. is very much a product of his circumstances, both Born in 1965 in Iraq to Iranian parents, his family on an international and an individual level, but were forced to return to Iran by Saddam Hussein this is clearly what informs his art. For Sadegh is in 1971, and he, like his compatriots went on the epitome of an Iranian artist whose innovative shortly thereafter to witness the overthrow of the and utterly contemporary works are profoundly Pahlavi Regime in the Revolution of 1979. Like influenced by the legacy of his Iranian roots. Aware vast numbers of young men in Iran at the time, of the immense cultural tradition of his ancestors, he volunteered at the age of fourteen as a Basiji or which he sees as being rapidly subsumed by the paramilitary conscript, to fight against the Iraqis powerful duality of Western globalisation and during the bloody eight year Iran-Iraq war. Although Profiles 173 Sadegh chooses not to speak about his experiences, backdrop of the architectural ruins of Persepolis (in they undoubtedly had a profound effect on his two different series) and at Choga Zanbil or in works perception of the world thereafter. featuring the biblical figure of the King of Babel, Following his involvement in the war, and after Hammurabi in two filmic inspired series dating finishing his schooling, in 1984 Sadegh decided to from 2001 and 2002. study photography at Tehran Fine Art University, But through a development in his work in 2000 thus pursuing his passion for cinematography, theatre onwards from these location shoots, Sadegh retreated and fine art. This in itself was an experience which into his studio, where he began focus on a more brought him once again into conflict, although cognitive reinterpretation of well known literary, this time with, to his mind, the archaic views of customary and religious antecedents ingrained in his tutors for whom photography was merely a the Iranian psyche. These antecedents however are literal medium for landscape representation or for not ‘happily ever after ending’ stories. Undoubtedly journalistic documentation, not one of creativity. due in part to his participation in the war, Sadegh Indeed today, when asked about his practice, regularly focuses on their narrative of bloody Sadegh maintains that he is not a ‘photographer’ a combat. Not unsurprisingly, the artist looks for his practice which he perceives to have overly simplistic inspiration to the 11th Century, male dominated connotations. For Sadegh the art of his lens based epic of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, wherein the legendary work, comprising photography, collage and video as prowess of its main protagonist Rostam is played out well as his installation pieces, was and is a conceptual in his heroic deeds. Through the juxtaposition of process, which he uses to articulate his commentary his own blood spattered torso against typical Safavid on the complexities of contemporary Iranian society. Shahnameh illustrations in his Whispers of the East With works in the collections of several museums (20062007-), Sadegh gives the viewer an instant including the Tehran Museum of Contemporary shot of contemporised orientalising masculinity. Art, British Museum, Brooklyn Museum and the Los Similarly influential on Sadegh’s work and of equal Angeles County Museum of Art, his commentary on importance in the macho stakes, are the much earlier Iranian society is proving popular. practices of the pre-Islamic zurkhaneh or ‘house of Two main themes run throughout the artist’s work strength’ in which, to this day, Iranian men perform – those of masculinity and of identity - and like the wrestling and bodybuilding exercises, thereby carpets designs which have come to feature so heavily emulating their testosterone loaded ancestral heroes, in Sadegh’s more recent projects, it’s impossible to the pahlavan. These he features in his eponymous unravel the warp of masculinity and the weft of studio shot Zoorkhaneh series of 200304-, in which identity, which are knotted so inextricably into his the body beautiful shouts loud from the images. practice, each layered with historicising overtones. Complimenting the male as hero in the legends of the From an artistic perspective, Sadegh has chosen Shahnameh, and the zurkhaneh, Sadegh also draws to convey the theme of manhood and specifically his inspiration from the Shi’a traditional practices, Iranian manhood, by the inclusion in many of his stemming from the veneration of the martyred photographs and videos of his leitmotif often bare Imam Hussein, still in currency today, and in which torsoed, self portrait. Sometimes he appears as a he participated during his time at war. Most notably lone figure (Iranian Man 2000), and at other times the practice comprises the powerful self-flagulating in association with other male characters (Sacrifice rituals of Ashoura performed during the month of 2003), but in each case he is consciously challenging Moharram together with performance of the popular the taboo subject of the male nude in Islamic art. religious Taaziye passion plays in which male actors In his earlier works, Sadegh draws heavily on adopt all the parts. empirical references to Iran’s pre-Islamic past, In accordance with the development of his practice, for instance photographing himself against the Sadegh began by shooting Ashura rituals in the 174 Profiles Multitude5 60*90 cm - Edition of 6 street in 1989 and completed his series in 2004 in Building on his empathy with traditional Islamic the studio. He was to return to the theme again in craft, Sadegh chooses to deploy the quintessential his recent Endless (2009) images, depicting men in Persian carpet as the carrier of his message. “The combat framed by daggers against a background of carpet is emblematic of Persian culture. It is a wrestlers from the zurkhaneh. symbol of culture, seasonality, richness, diversity Despite the historic emphasis of Sadegh’s work, and continuity- in time and in history. As such I he is not a man fixated in fetishicising a long lost have been obsessed by the parallelism and marriage romantic past. He is only too conscious of the between this symbolic, intricately loomed object and issues facing Iranian’s today albeit within a historic the people to which it belongs.” perspective. From 2006, he has been focusing on In Whispers of the East he superimposes figure of population and its unbalanced distribution around contemporary Iranian youths onto static rugs. But the world. As Sadegh notes “Within twenty years, in parallel with the developments in his earlier works, the world’s population will reach 7 billion. Denser and by using new technology, Sadegh began to and younger in developing countries, population is reverse the role of person and carpet, experimenting the Achilles’ heel of these regimes which considers with kaleidoscopic images of human carpets in his this group’s increasing needs and demands as a Multitude images (2009) until it reached its logical problematic issue.” He goes on to say however “I conclusion in his latest, Rashad Rana reminiscent, don’t only look at the topic from a political aspect series Human Tapestries 2010. Here, in a superb but also and most importantly from an artist’s eye elliptical play on his carpeted images, he frames – an eye which originates from a thousand year old the collages with samples of actual tapestry. Such culture, rich with history and civilization.” deconstruction of the imag should only lead to the Profiles 175 conclusion that Sadegh is drawing analogies with the to sculptural forms previously unknown in Iranian metaphorical destruction of tradition and historical art as the result of official religious intolerance to values with the fragmentation of society today. idolatry. Often cast in bronze, the best known of Woven however into this sadness is a more positive these are the series of iconic ‘heech’ or existentialist note “My goal is to demonstrate that all people nothingness sculptures, formed out of the Farsi regardless of gender, culture and religion are indeed letters for this word, created by Parviz Tanavoli and looking for inner peace and sanctity.” which he continues to produce to this day. Setting the context of Modern and Contemporary Significantly, however, although photography was a Iranian Art well established medium at this period (having been In order to understand the reasons for Sadegh’s introduced into Iran during the Qajar period), no choice of subject matter, it is important to explore photographers emerged directly during the period in the context from which his work developed. which the Saqqa-khaneh school flourished. Indeed, From an historical point of view, the rise of whilst there are numerous photographers working in Modern art in Iran (that is the break from the Iran today, Sadegh can be seen as an innovator in his more traditional Persian arts) stems from the use of photography referencing the subject matter of Constitutional Revolution in 1906. However, it is the Saqqa-khaneh tradition. not until the 1940’s, when the Faculty of Fine Arts Although the Saqqa-khaneh school as a distinct style in the University of Tehran was formed and run by was short lived, its influence continuesto live on. For the French architect André Godard, that Iranian example, artists such as Massoud Arabshahi and later art developed its own recognisable identity. Artists on Khosrow Hassanzadeh and Morteza Darehbaghi were beginning to travel regularly, and to study in include votif images in their work. As mentioned European institutions, consequently embracing the above, Parviz Tanavoli continues to produce his new ideologies of Post War Europe, but nevertheless heech series, Charles Hossein Zenderoudi and still struggling to develop a distinctly Iranian identity in references talismanic symbols in his paintings.