Lot 107: Aydeen Aghdashloo (Iranian, b. 1940)

Aydeen Aghdashloo (Iranian, b. 1940)
Enigma III
signed and dated 'aydin 08' and in Farsi, with artist stamp (lower left)
gouache and metallic paint on card
30 x 22¾in. (76 x 58in.)
Painted in 2008

This lot offered for sale is subject to a 5% import duty on the importation value levied at the time of collection/shipment within the UAE.
This painting is from Aydeen Aghdashloo's important Enigma series, a continuation of his most famous series Memories of Destruction, in which Aghdashloo uses icons of Italian as well as Persian classical paintings, surbverting them by destroying much of the familiar images through tearing, crumpling, burning and scratching. Typical of the works in this series, in The Years of Fire and Snow of 1978, he bases his work on the principles of Italian Renaissance painting. Aghdashloo's primary source is Sandro Botticelli. He replicates the revered Western original but, the charm and sophistication of Renaissance portrait is undermined by his unremitting attempts to partially ruin them. By injuring and disfiguring these masterpieces, he communicates his discontent with the shattered values of our age. The images are usually set against an ambiguous and esoteric background, mostly a bitterly cold winter, in order to make a strong and moving statement that can be interpreted both culturally and politically: it should be noted that this painting was executed in 1978, just a year before the Revolution, a time of turmoil within Iran.
In the later works of this period, he extended his sardonic repertoire to include images with silhouetted faceless body, evidently lacking any sense of identity and orientation. The polemic in these works is even stronger, showing an increasing skepticism about the rhetoric of the dominant cultural power against the past periods. An important works from the Memories of Destruction series was sold in these rooms lot 76, 31 October 2007.
In the works of the Enigma series, he further intensifies his sarcastic language by supplying his images with silhouetted faceless body with the face often covered with cloths, which evidently lacks any sense of identity and orientation. These hybrid works have an even stronger element of polemic, which points to an increasing skepticism about the rhetoric of the dominant cultural power against the past periods, and thus maintain an explicit political edge. The artist's preoccupation with lost glory of the past is not merely intended to pay homage to his mentors, but to express a sense of devastation derived from the cultural decline and dissolution of values.
Aydeen Aghdashloo is deeply respected by the Iranian nation, not only as a celebrated artist, but also as a great writer and distinguished art teacher.