Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam

Improvisation to Calculation  by  Ruyin Pakbaz, Feb. 2004

Half a century of Mohsen Vaziri's art production confirms his strong credence in the modernist tradition. In fact, his journey, from the earliest figuration practices to the last abstract collages, beholds diversity of ideas and modern art pioneers' methods; and for that reason, his works may look assorted. Vaziri has realised ultimate values of the modernist tradition in abstract art, and through the language of pure form and colour, he believes one may express profound conceptions, which would be improbable in naturalistic representations. To acquire such expressions, intuitive and intellectual courses are reasonably practicable. Creating an abstract work, in Kandinsky's words, "Reason, consciousness, and purpose play an overwhelming part. But of calculation nothing appears: only feeling".

Keeping up the pace with geometric abstraction (Constructivism) and lyrical abstraction (Abstract Expressionism) movements, and employing their eminent figures' teachings, Vaziri, in different periods of his career, has been able to run through the calculation and improvisation methods effectively. While scraping the sands or attentively sticking wood and metal parts together, one aspect of his art becomes more visible. However, Vaziri's diverse experiences have always tended towards an expression of inner world reality: ever restless.

For the last two decades, Vaziri has produced numerous paintings and abstract collages in rather small sizes, which are wide-ranging both in mode and technique. This collection can be considered as a review of earlier experiences and as an action towards an original behaviour, a journey through sand paintings, metal reliefs, articulated sculptures and the "Fear 'n Flight" series, to shed light on the dark corners of his abstract realm and to explore alternatives.

As ever in his past works, Vaziri reveals his intuitive and intellectual treatment. Now and again, he improvises with the lines and colours, or creates precise structures of coloured forms; nevertheless, his works may turn into force inter/counter-actions. Combination of straight and curving lines, geometric and organic shapes, and making the most of contrast in colour and tone, helps him engender a dynamic space, components of which unify en masse. It sounds as if the permanent alternation of acting and counteracting forces, inevitably, ends up in a sense of balance which will not last but for a moment. The artist, according to an inner requisition, disturbs the balance in order to improvise, in another plane, or to calculate it anew.

http://www.ir-tmca.com/Exhibition/vasiri/pakbaz.htm

Movement and Colour by Jalal Sattari, dec. 1993

Glancing through the collection Mohsen Vaziri-Moqaddam has brought from Italy, and displayed some here, proves his privileged imagination to every viewer. The works are wide-ranging, with different modes, viewpoints, and touches of brush from one technique to another: quite diversified. Many may criticize me, as an art lover not an art critic, to be bowled over and captivated with the first impact, and may easily fall into errors. In reply, but not to exempt the guilt, I only dare say some key sound impressions, far from school hue and cries (achievements, knowledge, and the heard), are right and reasonable.

Whatever it is, the point is apparent that Mohsen Vaziri-Moqaddam is not marking times, and has never clung to what he might have found before as to put him off the path. He is never trapped in the rules, which may have characterised his style someday, as though his mind is fascinated with unending creations. This, of course, does not mean to take the butterfly of his mind's eye to the air from every rose to another and hurry off to another subject, inexperienced and untried to all possibilities and treasures or capacities and potential capabilities of the content.

I can see that a creative artist will never stop indulging in his flight of fancy before he has every vision at hand, which is sometimes translated as a halt or a recession; and in its worst, it looks like agitating from shuttering down a store with things to sell behind. Mohsen Vaziri's explorations are not out of impatience or libertinism; though sometimes is told not to finish his word and started a new. And some works need a second thought as sketches, and as he states, are yet to experience.

However, the key point is such sketches and half-made images are fruits waiting to be seasoned. Thus, Mohsen Vaziri has always tried hard and had his heart in the right place, in contradiction with his answer when I asked "What were you doing all these years in Italy?" (and "Nothing!", he replied) he has constantly pencilled in and sketched. And in our times, when some are aspired, in the vein of legendary heroes, to sail a muse odyssey over a night, or to berth safe in the anchorage of acquaintance, knowledge and omniscience, such perilous exploits come to be enlightening and admonitory.

Some psychological approaches have analysed Mohsen Vaziri’s paintings, and the truth is that many of his works’ characteristics pave the way for such interpretations. I am not taking these viewpoints into practice; however, I intend to observe and achieve his objectives as an art lover who loves painting, and may this work. Under the condition, I believe, in Mohsen Vaziri’s paintings, two major and attention-grabbing elements, as movement and colour, are obvious, which take part in various compositions. Movement, as delicate and winding dance of lines, or the other way, the attack of the cutting, rigid, pointed lines are quarrelling hard. And colour moves as if either in companion to movement (or line is its shadow), or to fill the surface surrounded with delicate or indented lines. In the former situation, colour is not an element imposed on line, for it is to accompany it. In the latter, it is a patched cloth for winding figures: sometimes, an intimate friend of line, and sometimes, a ragged garment to wear. Vaziri, with these two elements, illustrates his world of imaginations, and therefore, his figures are rare or vague in his works. This line and colour, owes to Persian miniatures as well: dancing lines, twisted and bowlike, or actual, straight line, in a steady pace, contrasting angular and pointed lines, and stripped colours of him.

But what is he declaring through these two elements? Here, I believe we have got to categorise the works in styles and modes.

One category is rather "figurative"; machine torpedoes battling with terrified birds. Machine torpedoes, mythological dragons of our time, attack unbreakable, but the little swift-winged bird, tries hard to set free and shine like a bright beam of light out of the dark sun. There is fear, not hope-breaking, for life is the cycle of hope/fear. In such vast screens, a large part is blank… and indeed, it is hard for a painter to dare leaving such large white areas like motionless moors on canvas: ineffective, distorted, and unstructured. In some western researches, we have read for times that oriental artist are frightened with the void, and this is why they fill the whole canvas or papers with ornamentations or patterns. But in these Vaziri's canvases, negative and void spaces expose the panic of the battle scene. Let alone the void spaces, light colours of objects remind us of our kilims here in Iran. And ignoring the mechanic battles for a blink, we see ragged rugs of our dream world scattered in the bright broad or the unevenness which are not still far in distance from the "Kavir". In some smaller series, line and colour envision and inspire desert scenes. Though such scenes are not visible, the ambience is resembled through mild lines of the sand hills and high grounds and the colours of red and orange, and some shades of purple.

Relatively, the other category is "experimental", and in the realm of calligraphic paintings, using the "source" of line as scripts, not the very line as in calligraphy. For this, Vaziri's experiments are noticeable, and against the one who claimed this to be terminated by two other senior artists and there is no further for successors to go, Vaziri's efforts to open new horizons are remarkable (not to deny brilliant achievements of Mohammad Ehsaey, for instance, which are outstanding of their kind).

The fourth category includes the gloomy works with black thick lines overshadow, indicating dejection and depression to conquer in some certain times. In such paintings, however, bright fair colours break free from the hard trapping rules and find their way out.

The last, but by no means the least, category of paintings Vaziri has brought with him is, indeed, a return to his past. After all those long explorations, his return to the style is characterised with fingertip scratches of sand shores and drawings of washed sands of the seaside on canvas. That artist was speaking for his art root deep in his earth, clinging to it. I believe, at the end of the ups and downs of travel, he has harvested the same crop.

Mohsen Vaziri's identity is in these very cultivating and researches, and through such enthusiasm, there rises the sun to illuminate, needless to illustrate the glory.

In such a stage, as though the chain is fastened, the latter works of our hardworking great artist will decide whether the return is due to rest, fresh the breath, and stand straight again or…

 http://www.ir-tmca.com/Exhibition/vasiri/satari.htm

The Position of Mohsen Vasiri in the Global Scope of Contemporary Art, by  Laura Turco Liveri, 2003

Drawing lines or words in the sand, is on a smaller scale akin to imitating God who inscribes his thoughts in and on the earth, and the earth from within its depths, transfers these thoughts via organic vibrations to the roots of plants, to the earth upon which fauna walk and to the water in which they live. With the modesty of the insignificance of man, the gesture in sand that characterizes the beginning and the imprimatur of a substantial part of the work of Vasiri, becomes an expression of the artist’s need to be connected to the organic whole, to the cyclical character of life and to give and take from this cycle.

The hand’s contact with the earth, with the sand, transports us to our roots – to water, to the sea – and digs deeper with more pressure, with the removal of material which leaves a void, an aperture on the ground which produces humus, temper and perhaps also energy. This is what we must see and seek in Vasiri’s work: a second plane of perspective on a scene on the surface of a tableau. This is the earth’s depth for it is from this surface that the contact of the artist’s hand with the sand takes place and we too must grasp that which has been communicated to us – the sense of touch, the sense of exchange, the renewed glorification of life and the harmony with all that life is capable of.

With his gestures, Vasiri considers acceptable the great, energetic and creative power of painting, a power he had previously felt within himself over the feeling and dimension of humanity; he prefers opening up to others and communicating with them instead of magnifying himself and his ego. This has been the reason behind his limitation as an artist, and is in fact a mistake for an artistic life which does not belong to him and never has but instead presents a choice to research himself, a choice which he has always emphasized and continues with bravery.

That which has helped place this limitation upon him, has been someone, something, perhaps his own character, his sensibility, his curiosity as a researcher: instead of building panoramic blocks of energy which exert themselves over the viewer and sometimes even with their own voices instill fear within them, in his work, Vasiri introduces himself as a bridge via which the river of energy and communication can be crossed. He does not limit himself to the energy of motion and medium. His work speaks in the language of painting about the professional dimension of the artist and concentrates completely on the high feeling of composition, the mental impression of the work and the choice of synthetic elements. It sends a message (especially the modular compositions of 1963) and is in sync with high international research (for example Jackson Pollock’s murals in the 40’s, the feel of Mark Rothko’s composition, some gestural drawings of Franz Kline and the forms of Arshile Gorky dating to the 30’s).

On the visual plane, the artist has advanced a precise research in and on the sign, almost taking for granted the compositional force of the whole. Thus he denies the gestural character of the informal with the constructed character of grooves, and entrusts to the sign itself the energy to construct the compositional blocks that articulate the whole, from small to large (works of 1960-1963). In contrast, in his search for expressiveness, Vasiri has maintained intact the communicative intensity of his gestural undertaking, a penetration in depth that is also a threshold that can be crossed. As such, it has at its disposal, the entire surface of the painting: rectangular blocks such as doors, windows or thresholds, cut through by the multiple intervention of excavation in the sand, already in itself a voluntary act of recognition and three-dimensional rendering of two levels of depth.

Not the sign as an alphabetic letter of a visual language, in the way it holds true for Guiseppe Capogrossi, but as a permanent reference to the uniqueness of the organic and to the symbolic meaning of gesture in a concrete situation of a living sign which has never been denied.

Therefore Vasiri, in a solitary research which first began on the basis of research on material by Franco Gentilini,then by continuing the research of his second instructor, Totti Shaloyaand then due to his own cultural background in Iran which shows his personality and sensibility (for the first time in 1959 in a motion of scratching the sand), finds himself on a unique and strong gestural base but at the same time a symbolic and deeply natural one, pursuing a unique artistic research about signs, color and composition. Then in the late 60’s, this research takes him to abstraction, the abstraction of forms which gradually become clear and then to the next stage, meaning his own personal research to leave behind his knowledge of himself and the world via the tools of art with a metamorphosis from painting to sculpture.

From research on a visual language, the sign is crystallized into form; the gesture becomes closed within undulating contours. In this way, the material itself renders gesture in the wooden modules that articulate the sculptures of the end of the 1960s. Gesture thus emerges from the painting, taking on the consistency of wood – and more rarely of Plexiglas – to assume the responsibility of moving within space, within nature, amongst the people, becoming the protagonist, independent almost of the author. Alternatively, it can be read as the full confirmation of the expressive sum of these works, in the abstract and synthetic sublimation of that expressive language that elaborates in artistic form the continuity and circularity between nature and construction. However, simultaneously that feeling of advancing beyond is not forgotten, a feeling which is unique to the research of an artist and his modules pierced with hinges, so that these sculptures can be altered by the viewers as they please.

If polymorphism and the multidirectional character of these series lead to a kind of interpretation on the basis of parallel planes, it is because it is one of the typical qualities Vasiri’s researches on perspective and composition. This quality connects him with the unique spatial planning of the Italian sculptor Mario Ceroliand also reminds us of the transparent Plexiglas forms of Gino Marotta. The formation of Ceroli’s forms and the symbolic reference of Marotta to nature are qualities which do not belong to the culture and intention of Vasiri who tries to create the concrete realization of mechanical beings having their own unique life and consistency and to articulate the space which they divide and in which they spread themselves geometrically in superimposed and intersecting planes.

In this respect, Vasiri brings to mind the works of Alexander Calder except that Calder moves through space and does not solely rely on human interference with the surroundings. As such, Vasiri’s intention is movement and he takes on details without any hesitation. Details which cut the borders of his sculptural modules, dissect them in different directions and rhythms in order to show, in a visual and physical manner, the lightness and movement of signs and forms. Therefore, even in sculptures lacking modular articulation and shifting borders, there exists a feeling of crossing over and going beyond. This is exactly in contrast to the works of Siniscain the 70s consisting of steel sculptures in which the metal’s shine conceals a mythical reference.

Although the unprecedented play of moving sculptures was reminiscent of Dadaist mechanism and the futile machines of Marcel Duchamp, however, it goes beyond existentialist intuition, taking on a living manner which is a result of being tactile and constant. This is characteristic of the organic joints of the sculptures which are directly related to and have their deep origins in human motion. It is this origin, which in a subversive manner forms all the works of Vasiri and is easily recognizable by viewers; it sends a perceptive message beyond cultural elaborations which immediately creates a direct relationship between the viewer and the artwork. This feature, on the one hand, gives a normal manner to the high artistic research in everyday life, and on the other, it ultimately gives the viewer an active role and invites him to touch and move every sculpture, dissolving that reverential and distant boundary with the work without reducing its dignity and quality.

All this takes place during the most productive era of Vasiri’s sculptural work (circa 1967-1973). During this time, he cooperates with the international critical debates which for example were witness to the artistic and social commitment of Oiwind Falstromand his Variable paintings. For Vasiri, who shares a mature and personal commonality with Gentilini’s assault, all this seems just as programmed and spontaneous: works which were concrete and tactile and provided easy access for the viewers in a message intimately facilitated “both for a cobbler and an art critic,” with all the social implications and events which could result from it. Vasiri developed this completely. From the manner that this Iranian artist, despite living in Italy, has placed a profound status both in terms of humanistic and cultural elaboration on his own country on a difference apparent both in his life and works, we conclude that with all this anticipation only today has he given a response to that which everyone has realized and pushes for.

In truth it is due to these reasons that a retrospective of the works Vasiri, is now more than any other time contemporary and necessary because it is one of those historical testimonies – especially this representation of sand and his sculptures – which we are all looking for, especially us Westerners, especially after a method for the reconstitution of a direct relationship with an organic life which we have lost, whether in the field of tradition and culture and thought or because of the alienating and unnatural events of a kind of modernity which Vasiri modestly reveals with his own contribution to the field of artistic research and to himself. Hence, Vasiri’s work should not be seen from a contemporary cultural and artistic point of view but instead, should be related to artistic eras of a world in which Vasiri has chosen as his model in a comparison with his own sensibility and programmed artistic intention.
The Iran-Italy bridge which this artist and his Tehran exhibition offer is one of the many steps which are being taken today for international culture to show the value of documenting the importance of a part of the world which is unknown to so many. A part of the world whose history, tradition, lifestyle and culture makes an important, valuable and serious contribution to further advance thought and sensibility in society.
From the 70s, when sculpture, in particular Italian sculpture flourished, Vasiri, in the creation of an equilibrium between the synthesis and existentiality of the informative conception of art, transfers the results of his previous research onto canvas; he leaves behind the experience of creating sculpture and again pursues linguistic research and tries new paths on which he releases representation from the superfluous. Those same exact forms which protrude from the canvas and turn into sculpture become the common line between three dimensional motion and surface. This surface is ultimately presented in a physical plane used to give direction to forms and then to the colorful areas which gradually cover them. A frontal three dimensional mechanism which had previously been used by the Sicilian sculptor, Pietro Consegra – whose works also concentrates on a spatial relationship of dialogue (the seminars of the 50s) but unlike the works of Vasiri, are cut forms which move from the inside out – is formed from the outside on a two dimensional surface and is held together with screws reminiscent of the joint movements of his previous works.

The memory of this past era compels Vasiri to also transfer this multidirectionalilty onto the canvas and again use the cut forms along with a dramatic transformation in the vibration of color previously nonexistent or at the gamic stage. The dramatic manner which has been added to the current themes provides the artist with an opportunity to place his own work at the service of a very authentic commitment with an emphasis on the ability of analyses and documentary synthesis, thus moving himself nearer to an epic evocation of events based on abstract concepts – war, peace, flight, love. This synthesis and abstract representation are not unlike the formal movements of Leger and Picasso, especially the works of Picasso after the 20s. However, in the works of Vasiri the dreamlike manner of the works of the Spanish artist has been reduced. On the other hand, because Vasiri follows truth, he is more similar to the evocative and sometimes dreamlike lightness of the lines of surrealist artists like Ernst, sometimes Dali, Miro and on some occasions, Matisse.

Combining the works by these historic avant-gardes gives Vasiri the possibility of a higher artistic power for his next flight, a flight which at the end of the 80s, can already be seen in several works, and is then present in his next discovery, meaning his dust like vibrations of chromatic paste and in the necessity to approach truth and the perceptive reality of things. From his studies on the chromatic and tonal variations in 89-90, the next stage of his work takes shape in a series of collages. These are profoundly rhythmic and chromatic. Aesthetically they have a clear expression and conceptually they are modulated based on the principles of Kandinsky – Dot, Line, Plane (1926).

 Yet, they are not foreign to and have a relationship with the compositive research of Adrian Hart in the 30s. Thus, Vasiri’s tendency for abstract narration takes shape which is again the result of his native culture and the narration of work which originates in the rhythm and form of Iranian calligraphy; this allows the artist to gain access to various surfaces of expression: linear, lyrical-evocative and musical in the light chromatic variation and flow of watercolor and also by using the expressive force of parallel lines which is the product of the grooves created by the clawing of fingers across the sand in his initial years.

 Vasiri has now dedicated himself to small scale sculptures and because we have not yet seen examples of this new era, we must be hopeful that in a tactile experience, which he has researched in many fields, this new attitude will be the curtain call of a strong artistic character. We shall see.