Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam | " 100 Years": Dastan's Basement

Dastan's Basement is proud to announce its participation in the program, “Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam > 100 Years”, celebrating the 100th year since the birth of artist Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam. The program, organized by Fondazione Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam, takes form in numerous international events and exhibitions in collaboration with institutions and galleries, including Dastan. The exhibitions open on July 19 and will be on view until August 9, 2024. 

Dastan's Basement is showcasing a series of monotypes by Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam created between 1959 to 1963. In the early 1960s, Vaziri Moghaddam spent his days making sand paintings and nights scratching paint off the glass to create monotypes. These monotypes can be considered studies for his sand paintings, yet they stand as individually significant works.

Prisoners’ drawings on prison walls and cavemen paintings in caves constantly marched in his mind. Working with his hands, he felt that he was recreating a primal act, engaging in what all humans do when they tap into their creativity.

Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam (1924 – 2018) is acknowledged as a pioneer of Iranian abstractionism and a leading figure in developing contemporary Iranian art. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. He was also an educator, opening the way for many to-be artists to go beyond the limits of established ways. His "Drawing Method and Painting Guide" (1981) is a standard academic text today. 

He is widely recognized for works spanning five decades, from the painterly abstracts of the 1960s to the hard-edged geometry of the sculpted and painted aluminum wall reliefs of his later years. Vaziri's work is characterized by a restless experimentation of form through materials –deployed in his drawings, sand paintings, opto-kinetic sculptures, and painted aluminum wall reliefs.