Bakhtak is a demon that attacks at night whilst you are sleeping and sucks your life source. Here a Mullah is depicted as such a demon attacking a sleeping woman.
End of Gaddafi
Finally the mad tyrant is dead.
I made this drawing on my IPAD back in August and expected his end then.
One thing about this is that such a violent end is not a good start for a new regime. Take my word for it, when a regime ends with violence another violent regime that goes from one revolutionary extreme to another takes over.
What’s more it is perhaps time to question all those Western regimes that helped such a vermin stay in power for so long, I mean it is one thing for the British PM to remind us all of the tragic death of PC Ivan Fletcher and the Lockerbie bombings and another when not so long ago we are remind that Tony Blair went off to Libya shaking the hand of this madman.
DaGod style typography series.
Images are made from the phrase:I will throw my words until you listen.
A DaGod style poster I did a while ago. I republished it to celebrate the fall of Gaddafi. May all dictators follow.
Islam like other Abrahamic religions lacks a serious role for women. It is often the case that the role has been wiped out.
Here I have made a joke that Ayatollah‘s most formidable critics in Iran are women who fight for their rights, and as a fabricated propaganda here they have turned religion into an appealing fashion house label to win them back!
Made with religious calligraphy, it is one of my early DaGod works.
Anthem for Neda
This is a DaGod poem. Click on the image to see enlarge it.
I have taken my “Anthem for Neda” poem and applied several DaGod concepts to make it a DaGod poem.
- I have over-embellished it, this is something that is often done with religious text but one aspect of over-embellishment is that the meaning or significance changes giving a new meaning to the work.
- I have dissolved it, by running it through the tag cloud generator, it has lost it’s structure but with the cloud elements of the mood and tone of the poem are still present.
- The meaning has become a lost object.
Anthem for Neda
What lamenting cry for you who fell like a leaf?
More howling guns or sound of protesting feet?
What drops should pour for this anguish?
Their tears of Gas? More weeping in blood vanquished?
No mockeries for you; no drink from their martyr’s well,
Nor sound and vision from a TV deaf and blind for those who fell,
No gleam of sorrow from these murderous beasts,
Only a frenzy as they persist their blood feast.
How many candles should we burn to keep your memory alive?
Burn the World with your light or go back to just survive?
You gave your youth, life and beauty,
Shame on us to live but not to do our duty.
Life is just a day, our lives race towards the dusk,
We shall walk your path in freeway, we must until we turn to dust.
Ramin Tork 23rd June 2009
Shirin Neshat
I had gone to the premier of the film “Women without Men” by Shirin Neshat. Prior to the film I bought her book and had it signed.
I am a great fan of her work, but my question in the QA session did seem to get up her nose. If I recall I asked “Iranian Art has had some success Thanks to altermodernism and Saatchi’s interest in this field. why does Iranian Art have to be so brutal and melancholic” and could we be accused of a kind of Self imposed orientalism if we continue with promoting our Art in the West on the basis of cultural shock value?
She didn’t like that question, and responded that it is always fellow Iranians who are so critical of the image of Iranian-ness that we portray another words we stay conservative because we don’t want to dent our national dignity.
My verdict is that just like Bridget Riley to some extend she has become a victim of her own success as everyone wants to have a piece of the action.
I do get annoyed with some of the people in the Art industry who have focused in Middle Eastern Art, who are in it just to make money. Good for them but the outcome is that they manipulate the Artists to produce goods that sell in the same way as road side locals in Africa carve wooden elephants to sell to the tourists. If I may criticize my own people, us Iranians are not the most principled of people, give a chance to an unestablished Artist to have a show, and make a few bucks and get a name among a public that doesn’t know shit from Shinola and until you are forgotten you’ve got what you always wanted!
So the galleries get saturated with images of melancholic veiled women looking at you from every angle!
The difference is that she in contrast to the cheap imitations actually produce beautiful images. Her film was in fact a series of fantastic imagery from one shot to another. Images produced by an immaculate photographer.
Gilbert and George once said that they stopped doing their drawings because people found them beautiful and that was getting in the way of the Art.
I think the same tip could be used for the film, and Iranian Art in general. There is too much emphasis on beauty and aesthetics and the Art could get lost in the way.
All these constraits leaves no room for Iranian Turner prize winners, where are those brave enough to make something that a public might hate today but grow to appreicate in ten years time.
Having said all the above, I do confess that melancholy is a national sport/pass time for us Iranians, and I shouldn’t throw that many stones as my own Art can seriously get Maccabre at time, but believe me if I make miserable Art in my case it is not because I think that sells or gets me promoted. If I wanted to hang my work in a Gallery and get a name I would have done it years ago. At least I am one Artist who Thanks to slaving for Investment Banks could afford the cost of throwing an Exhibition, and I’ve done promotion and Exhibition catalogs for others so it isn’t as if I don’t know how, I wasn’t planning to make money out of my work, and turning pro puts you in a different ball game.
I don’t want to do that because there are a few things which in life I really want to keep true and pure, one my marriage and being a husband and a father two my Art. I do it for myself anyway, so why screw that up?
Hila Sedighi – Poem (English Subtitle) for oppressed students of Iran
There are not many poets whose first public reading of a poem can move a nation. Hila Sedighi is such a poetess. Young, beautiful and superbly talented she recited a poem that had people clapping and many in tears. In a country where people are executed for blogs she took that stand and like a saint who has to speak the truth recited her poem.
To people who don’t live under such hardship all of this must seem surreal, but today in the 21st century there are people like her who risk all to speak out.
She is currently being pursued by the representatives of the brutal Islamic republic regime. They first used their influence so that she would lose her job, and are currently trying to fabricate a case in one of their closed kangaroo court.
For her courage and brilliance, Hila has already become a national treasure, amongst those who hold the true Iranian culture in their heart.
As an Iranian like many I wish all the best to her and her family, and hope that this human devouring regime and their thugs fall and face justice before they can kill more sons and daughters of Iran. Unfortunately this is a regime that does not take heed in International response to their violation of human rights, and they have executed many on trump up charges, but if this thing goes that far one must make the effort.
P.S. Her poem has been subtitled.
