Aydin Aghdashloo
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Aydin Aghdashloo ( fa, آیدین آغداشلو; born October 30, 1940) is an Iranian painter, graphist, art curator, writer, and film critic.


Early life and education

Aydin Aghdashloo, the son of Mohammad-Beik Aghdashloo (Haji Ouf) and Nahid Nakhjevan, was born on October 30, 1940, in the Afakhray neighborhood of
Rasht Rasht ( fa, رشت, Rašt ; glk, Rəšt, script=Latn; also romanized as Resht and Rast, and often spelt ''Recht'' in French and older German manuscripts) is the capital city of Gilan Province, Iran. Also known as the "City of Rain" (, ''Ŝahre B ...
. His father was a Azerbaijani Turk and a member of Azerbaijan Equality Party and his family assumes their surname from the small town of Agdash. After seeing Aydin's talent in painting at school and his hand-made models, Mohammad-Beik took him to Habib Mohammadi, a painter and a teacher from Rasht. In 1959, at the age of 19, after successfully passing the university entrance examination, he enrolled at Tehran University's School of Fine Arts. In 1967, unable to complete his studies after eight years, he dropped out of college.


Works

In 1975, Aghdashloo held his first individual exhibition at Iran-America Society in Tehran. The exhibited paintings were mostly about floating things, dolls and some works about the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
. Between 1976 and 1979, Aghdashloo helped open and launch Museums Abghineh va Sofalineh,
Reza Abbasi Museum The Reza Abbasi Museum (Persian: موزه رضا عباسی ) is a museum in Tehran, Iran. It is located in Seyed Khandan.http://www.allmuseums.com/english/reza_abbasi_museum.html The museum is named after Reza Abbasi, one of the artists in the Sa ...
and Contemporary Arts in Tehran and also
Kerman Kerman ( fa, كرمان, Kermân ; also romanization of Persian, romanized as Kermun and Karmana), known in ancient times as the satrapy of Carmania, is the capital city of Kerman Province, Iran. At the 2011 census, its population was 821,394, in ...
and Khorram-Abad Museums. Aghdashloo was the holder and coordinator of several exhibitions after the Iranian revolution. While none of them were special exhibitions of his works, they played an important role in introducing contemporary Iranian art to the people inside and outside Iran. He took multiple exhibitions from Iran to other countries, including "Iranian Art, since the Past until Today" in China, "Past Iranian Art" in Japan, and the contemporary Iranian paintings with a traditional background sent to
Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
, Italy. Aghdashloo is also a recipient of the
Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...
. Aghdashloo's interest in including surreal spaces in his works and painting floating objects began in his 30 years of age. During the period, his works were of floating objects having a shadow on the ground. In a surrealistic environment, he painted dolls having no faces influenced by Gergeo Deki Riko and they later became a large part of his series "Years of Fire and Snow". According to him, painting of such faceless dolls helped him say the subconscious suspicious and illusive word in the form of a painting. After the 1979 revolution and the eight-year war, most of Aghdashloo's works were about memorials and objects proceeding to doom and damage; abandoned huts and views, green wooden rotten windows with broken glasses, old doors with rusted locks, and deadly blades as symbols of missiles hitting the cities; all of them showed the painter's thinking of gradual doom and damage as the passing of hard times. Using Iranian miniature continued in his works and he used every Iranian classic style and space for transferring his subjective concepts about the contemporary world. Aghdashloo paints most of his works by
gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache h ...
on
canvas Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, shelters, as a support for oil painting and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbags ...
.
Bahram Beyzai Bahrām Beyzāêi (also spelt Beizāi, Beyzāêi, fa, بهرام بیضائی; born 26 December 1938) is an Iranian playwright, theatre director, screenwriter, film editor, and '' ostād'' ("master") of Persian letters, arts and Iranian studies ...
writes in a part of his article: "Why shouldn't I be rude and say that if there's a value in copy-painting, the patterns of the previous celebrities of painting and visualizing aren't in our reach; so that as evaluation criteria, they can testify for the level of accomplishment of those masters in copy-painting; but their works, which Aydin has remade, are a proof of Aydin's skill in copy-painting. It's obvious that copy-painting wasn't all of their art, as it's not all of Aydin's. It's Aydin's imagination and time-sighting and death-aware thought that's the final maker of his work. The crevices that time has made in the paintings, and the oppressions that the cosmos – or man's hand – has inflicted upon them. In Aydin's repaintings, these masters' praise are accompanied with sorrow for their own and their works' mortality." In a ceremony that was held in French embassy in
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
on Tuesday, January 12, 2016, Aghdashloo received the
Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...
.


Controversy


Allegations of sexual misconduct

On August 22, 2020, Sara Omatali, a former reporter publicly stated that during an encounter in late 2006, Aydin Aghdashloo forcibly grabbed her and kissed her in his office, where they had met for an interview. On August 27, 2020, Aghdashloo issued English and Persian public statements denying the allegations and expressing his support for women's movements, stating that false accusations made it difficult for real victims to seek justice. Barbad Golshiri, son of Iranian author
Houshang Golshiri Houshang Golshiri ( fa, هوشنگ گلشیری; March 16, 1938''A Hundred Years of Storytelling in Iran'', Amir Abedini, p. 274. – June 5, 2000) was an Iranian fiction writer, critic and editor. He was one of the first Iranian writers to ...
, announced that the new edition of his father's novel, ''Prince Ehtejab'', would not include Aghdashloo's painting.
Bahman Kiarostami Bahman Kiarostami ( fa, بهمن کیارستمی; born 11 August 1978, in Tehran) is an Iranian film director, cinematographer, film editor and film producer. He is the son of the late critically acclaimed Abbas Kiarostami. The main theme in Kia ...
, documentary filmmaker and son of the acclaimed filmmaker,
Abbas Kiarostami Abbas Kiarostami ( fa, عباس کیارستمی ; 22 June 1940 – 4 July 2016) was an Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, photographer, and film producer. An active filmmaker from 1970, Kiarostami had been involved in the production of ...
, defended Golshiri's action as a "declaration of support for a social movement", and a legal verdict was irrelevant "because of the obvious: in the words of Leonard Cohen and
Asghar Farhadi Asghar Farhadi ( fa, اصغر فرهادی, ; born 7 May 1972)Soureh Movie Database
, 'everybody knows'." Aghdashloo's behaviour, Kiarostami added, was no longer tolerable "in the face of a mass social movement." Fahime Khezr Heidari, a journalist based in Washington, D.C., said Omatali was "one of the most ethical people" she knew and added that she had heard a "dozen" similar cases against Aghdashloo. , a former Iranian film and television actress tweeted that she was a student of Aghdashloo's for two years in the early 1990s and though she was never subjected to Aghdashloo's sexual misconducts, yet she could confirm that sexual misconducts appeared to be a natural part of Aghdashloo's life.


Investigation in ''The New York Times''

On October 22, 2020,
Farnaz Fassihi Farnaz Fassihi ( fa, فرناز فصیحی; born 1971) is an Iranian-American journalist who has worked for ''The New York Times'' since 2019. She is the United Nations bureau chief and also writes about Iranian news. Previously she was a seni ...
published two months worth of investigations, interviewing alleged victims of Aghdashloo in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. The investigation included 13 women who accused Aghdashloo of sexual abuse, including one who was underage. The report documented victims comparing Aghdashloo to
Harvey Weinstein Harvey Weinstein (; born March 19, 1952) is an American former film producer and convicted sex offender. He and his brother, Bob Weinstein, co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced several successful independent films inclu ...
:


Personal life

He was previously married to architect Firouzeh "Fay" Athari in 1981. Together they had two children, Takin and Tara Aghdashloo. From 1972 until 1980, his first marriage was to actress
Shohreh Aghdashloo Shohreh Aghdashloo ( fa, شهره آغداشلو, ; née Vaziri-Tabar (); 11 May 1952) is an Iranian and American actress. Following numerous starring roles on the stage, she made her film debut in ''Chess of the Wind'' (1976). Her next two film ...
(née Vaziri-Tabar), and they did not have children.


See also

*
List of Iranian painters Classical era Classical Persian painter * Kamaleddin Behzad * Reza Abbasi * Farrukh Beg * Mihr 'Ali Modern era A * Aghapour, Shahla * Aghdashloo, Aydin * Alikhanzadeh, Samira (1967– ), painter * Alivandi, Bahram * Arabshahi, Massoud ...


References


External links


Aydin Aghdashloo's Official Website
* Ali Dehbāshi, ''Aghdashloo, a passer-by by the side of the wall'' (''Aghdashloo, āberi dar kenār-e divār''), in Persian, Jadid Online, January 30, 2009


• ''Aghdashloo: Living to Paint'', in English, Jadid Online, May 14, 2009


• Audio slideshow by Shokā Sahrā'i, in Persian (with English subtitles), Jadid Online, 2009

(7 min 6 sec). {{DEFAULTSORT:Aghdashloo, Aydin Iranian painters Contemporary painters Iranian graphic designers Iranian art critics Iranian people of Azerbaijani descent People from Rasht 1940 births Living people Iranian poster artists Iranian watercolourists Iranian contemporary artists Iranian art writers 20th-century Iranian people 21st-century Iranian people