Sadegh Tirafkan This past May, the Iranian art community mourned the loss of Sadegh Tirafkan, one of
Sadegh Tirafkan This past May, the Iranian art community mourned the loss of Sadegh Tirafkan, one of the country’s “new art movement” pioneers, to brain cancer at the age of 47. Known for his innovative blending of photography with other artistic media, Tirafkan was an early proponent of photo-based art in Iran and a prominent international representative of Iranian contemporary art.Born in Karbala, Iraq, to Iranian parents in 1965, Tirafkan spent his childhood and adolescence in Ahwaz, southern Iran, where he volunteered to join the Iranian army during the war between Iran and Iraq (1980–1988). His early experiments in theater and filmmaking as a teenager led him to apply for a degree in photography at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran on leaving the army. After graduating in 1990, Tirafkan remained committed to developing his own visual idiom, and it was this that set him apart from the many artists whose practices were informed by official narratives, or who were pursuing the dominant current of war-oriented documentary photography. […]While the exploration and use of traditional Iranian imagery is perhaps common among Iranian artists today, Tirafkan should be credited as one of this style’s originators. Choosing historic sites like Persepolis and Susa as his settings and referencing Iranian post-Islamic history—theAshuraceremony, Iranian ritual champion wrestling, miniature painting and carpet motifs—Tirafkan introduced themes such as the traditional identity versus the modern identity, notions of the self and the problematizing of male psyche. - asiapacifica -- source link
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