Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T15:19:44.720Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fictive Layering and Inversion in the Paintings of Ali-Akbar Sadeghi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Aida Foroutan
Aida Foroutan*
Affiliation:
School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, University of Manchester, UK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In Iran surrealism is spoken of by artists and critics as a living element in art, long after its popularity in Europe and North America has waned. This article explores key features of the work of one of the most prolific contemporary Iranian artists, Ali-Akbar Sadeghi. While Sadeghi says that he thinks of himself as a “surrealist,” his work is distinguished from many self-professed surrealists in Iran: whereas the latter are concerned with representing metaphysical, even mystical, meanings, Sadeghi sees his art as a kind of intellectual exercise, presenting a dramatic theater in which the viewer engages in epistemological interrogation. Though Sadeghi’s paintings are full of apparent references to surrealist themes and tropes from the past, here it is argued that his work is not so much a storehouse of surrealist content as a series of puzzles for the viewer to solve.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , July 2016 , pp. 533 - 553
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adamowicz, Elza. Surrealist Collage in Text and Image. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Ades, Dawn. Dalí. London: Thames and Hudson, 1995.Google Scholar
Akrami, Jamaleddin, et al. “Gozashte-hā dar āyene-ye emruz” [Past times in today’s mirror]. Ketab-e Mah (Farvardin 1382/March 2003).Google Scholar
“Aliakbar Sādeqi: Naqqāshi-hā-ye mā kamtar mehr-e irāni dārand” [Ali-Akbar Sadeghi: our paintings have less of Iranian affection]. Aftabe Yazd, 3 Mordād 1383/July 24, 2004.Google Scholar
Allmer, Patricia. René Magritte: Beyond Painting. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Babilas, Wolfgang. “Le collage dans l’oeuvre critique et littéraire d’Aragon.” Revue des sciences humaines 151 (July–September 1973): 330–354.Google Scholar
“Bish az har chiz yek naqqāsh hastam: goft-o-gu ba Aliakbar Sādeqi” [Above anything else I am a painter: conversation with Ali-Akbar Sadeghi]. Iran, 25 Esfand 1385/March 16, 2007.Google Scholar
Boyce, Mary. A History of Zoroastrianism. Vol. 1. Leiden: Brill, 1975.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cammann, Schuyler V. R. “Religious Symbolism in Persian Art.” History of Religions 15, no. 3 (February 1976): 193–208. doi: 10.1086/462743Google Scholar
Chadwick, Whitney. Myth in Surrealist Painting, 1929–1939. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Darmesteter, James. The Zend-Avesta Part II, The Sīrōzahs Yašts and Niyāyeš. Sacred Books of the East 23. Delhi Motilal Banarsidass, 1988.Google Scholar
Darya-bakhsh, Noushin. “Tā in shoʿe khāmoush nashavad” [So that this fire shall not be extinguished]. Ketab-e Hafteh 187 (3 Mordād 1383/July 24, 2004).Google Scholar
Descharnes, Robert, and Néret, Gilles. The Paintings of Salvador Dalí. Cologne: Taschen, 2009.Google Scholar
Ebrahimi, Nader. Alef Bā: tahlil-e falsafi-e panjāh tarh az Aliakbar Sādeqi-e naqqāsh [Alphabet: the philosophical analysis of fifty sketches of the painter Ali-Akbar Sadeghi]. Tehran: Farhangan, 1371/1992.Google Scholar
Emami, Karim. Negāhi dobāre be maktab-e saqqākhāne [Saqqākhāneh: Saqqākhāneh school revisited]. Exh. cat. Tehran: TMoCA, 1356/1977.Google Scholar
Fanés, Fèlix. Salvador Dalí: The Construction of the Image, 1925–1930. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Fatemi, Asal. “Sādeqi ostād-e nādidani-hā: rang va hajmi varāye vāqeʿiyat” [Sadeghi the master of the unseeable: color and mass beyond reality]. Ariana Gardeshgar 23 (Tir–Mordād 1388/July–August 2009).Google Scholar
Flahiyeh, Ahmad. “Pahlavānān labkhand nemizanand: goft-o-gu bā Aliakbar Sādeqi” [Heroes don’t smile: conversation with Ali-Akbar Sadeghi]. Pilban 19 (Mehr 1382/October 2003).Google Scholar
Foroutan, Aida. “Some Hybrid Forms: Memory and Imagination in Contemporary Iranian Art.” Art Tomorrow Quarterly 1, no. 2 (Summer 2010): 106–117.Google Scholar
Foroutan, Aida. “The Reception of Surrealism in Iran.” PhD diss., University of Manchester, 2012.Google Scholar
Frascina, Francis. “Picasso, Surrealism and Politics.” In Surrealism: Surrealist Visuality, edited by Levy, Silvano. New York: New York University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Harrison, Nicholas. Circles of Censorship: Censorship and its Metaphors in French History, Literature, and Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Holm, Jean, and Bowker, John, eds. Myth and History. London: Pinter, 1994.Google Scholar
Keshmirshekan, Hamid. “Neo-Traditionalism and Modern Iranian Painting: The Saqqa-khāneh School in the1960s.” Iranian Studies 38, no. 4 (2005): 607–630. doi: 10.1080/00210860500338408Google Scholar
Kirk, Geoffrey S. Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures. London: Cambridge University Press, 1970.Google Scholar
Klingsöhr-Leroy, Cathrin. Surrealism, edited by Grosenick, Uta. Köln: Taschen, 2004.Google Scholar
Lomas, David. Narcissus Reflected: The Narcissus Myth in Surrealist and Contemporary Art. London: Fruitmarket Gallery, 2011.Google Scholar
“Man model-e khodam hastam” [I am my own model]. Jam-e Jam, 18 Ordibehesht 1381/May 8, 2002.Google Scholar
“Mesle honarmandān-e ronesānsi” [Like Renaissance artists]. Honar-ha-ye Tajassomi 4 (Zemestān 1377/Winter 1999): 97–107.Google Scholar
Mir-Mostafa, Hossein. Naqqāshi dar qahve-khāne [Painting in the coffee-house]. Tehran: Sima-ye Kowsar, 1387/2008.Google Scholar
Mojabi, Javad. “Turning Toward New Horizons.” In Ali-Akbar Sadeghi: Selected Works of 1977–1997, edited by Mojabi, Javad and Zarrinkelk, Nooreddin. Tehran: Iranian Art Publishing, 1998.Google Scholar
Mojabi, Javad, and Zarrinkelk, Nooreddin. Ali-Akbar Sadeghi: Selected Works of 1977–1997. Edited by Eshkevari, Kazem Sadat. Translated by Claude Karbassi. Tehran: Iranian Art Publishing, 1998.Google Scholar
Moorizi-nejad, Hasan. “Honarmandān-e moʿāser-e irān: ʿAli Akbar Sādeqi” [Contemporary Iranian artists: Ali-Akbar Sadeghi]. Tandis 89 (Āzar 1385/December 2006).Google Scholar
Nadeau, Maurice. The History of Surrealism. Translated by Richard Howard. London: Jonathan Cape, 1968.Google Scholar
Sami-Azar, Alireza. “Elegy of Annihilation: An Investigation into Different Series of Works by Aydin Aghdashloo.” Art Tomorrow Quarterly 1, no. 2 (Summer 2010).Google Scholar
Sandercock, Leonie, ed. Making the Invisible Visible: A Multicultural Planning History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Sartre, Jean-Paul. The Psychology of Imagination. London: Methuen, 1972.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Hranns-Peter. “Simorḡ.” In Encyclopaedia Iranica Online (July 20, 2002).Google Scholar
Seyf, Hadi. Coffee-House Painting. Edited by Ahmadi, Batoul. Translated by Karbassi, Claude. Tehran: Reza Abbasi Museum and Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization, 1990.Google Scholar
Sparshott, Francis E. “Imagination: The Very Idea.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 48, no. 1 (Winter 1990): 1–8. doi: 10.2307/431195Google Scholar
Spitz, Ellen Handler. Museums of the Mind: Magritte’s labyrinth and other essays in the arts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994.Google Scholar