Mohsen Vaziri-Moghaddam

“These sculptures possess elongated, and serrated wooden parts attached to their middle bases through joints which could be manipulated and moved. In Vaziri’s own words, “they would open and close just like human joints”. According to the artist, the idea of these moving parts occurred while making and cutting pieces for the fixed sculptures. These earlier, immobile sculptures were actually devised from intersecting a few shaped, colorful flat plates, like fragments of a paintings.” (Darabi, 2021)

In 2021 a major exhibition on Vaziri’s articulated wooden and plexiglass sculptures "Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam. Unrealised Projects. Dynamic Sculptures from Small to Monumental 1968-2018” was held at Argo Factory, with the support of the Italian Embassy in Tehran.

In 2017, the Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam Foundation was created in Rome following the wish of the artist and his sons. Its goal is to increase the public’s awareness and enhance the understanding of Vaziri’s visual arts, promoting and protecting the artworks through the archive and publication of a catalogue raisonné.

In 2017 the Foundation organized its first happening in the industrial area of Ex Dogana in Rome. On this occasion the artist made a large-size sand artwork across 20 canvases.

In 2014, the same sculpture was exhibited at the contemporary art exhibition “Artevida corpo” at the Fundação Casa França-Brasil, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In 2013 one of his sculptures (Forms in Movement) and the sand painting that is part of the MoMA collection were exhibited at the “Iran Modern” exhibition, a major retrospective on Iranian dynamic modern art, held at the Asia Society Museum in New York.

In 2004, he exhibited at the major solo “Fourth Exhibition. Pioneers of Iranian Modern Art: Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam”, at Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, also featuring works by Gerhard Richter.

In 2003 Vaziri was affected by an eye disease, that would considerably reduce his eyesight, but he didn’t let this dampen his spirit. On the contrary, he resumed one of his previous techniques from the end of the 1950s, using large splashes of colour that reflected his way of seeing reality.

In 1999 his Farsi translation of The Mind and Work of Paul Klee by W. Hahtmann was published; he resumed contact with Iranian universities and held several lectures.

In the 1990s the artist worked on Persian calligraphy shapes, trying to point out the minimalism of its lines. He also continued to test himself with abstract compositions that were all different from each other and characterised by either highly defined shapes and intense colours or vague silhouettes and soft pastel colours.

In 1985 Vaziri decided to return to Rome, the beloved city of his artistic training and development, with his wife and two children.

After a long stint in Italy, he returned to Iran where he taught for several years (until 1978), at the Faculty of Decorative Arts (the current University of Art) and the Faculty of Fine Arts in Tehran. In those years, he wrote two art methodology textbooks that are still amongst the most studied by Iranian art students today: Drawing method vol. 1 (1974) and Drawing method vol. 2 (1981). He carried out the translation of several art books on Paul Klee, German Expressionism, Venetian craftmanship and 20 century painting, from English, French and Italian into Farsi.

During the 1970s, these sculptures would in turn inspire a series of paintings entitled Fear and Flight that marked a return to the well-defined shapes (both pointed and rounded) of his tri-dimensional works and developed them further. Alberto Moravia and Pierre Restany are amongst the eminent art critics that wrote about his work.

In 1968, Vaziri moved to the Cité des Arts in Paris, thanks to a grant, and he continued developing his work with aluminium and ondulated pieces of wood. That same year, his works were presented at Royan International Festival and exhibited at the national TV headquarters.

One of Vaziri’s aluminium artwork (“Untitled 1968/2015”) from 1960s is currently on display as part of the touring exhibition “The Dynamic Eye: Op and Kinetic Art” organized by Tate Modern and Pudong Museum of Art, Shanghai.

In 1967 he started working on a series of reliefs made of aluminium and iron sheets and was still anchored to a mono-dimensional approach.

In 1965 Vaziri was at the peak of his artistic career that coincided with the acquisition of one of his paintings by the Modern Art Museum (MoMA) in New York.

Between 1959 and 1960, he developed a vision of abstract art through experiments that are highly focused on materials. This led to the creation of some of his most powerful works: the sand paintings. These paintings were conceived in a playful moment in the spring of 1959 and Vaziri kept trying his hand at them for the following 3 years, until 1963.

A constant and essential theme in his work–whether in painting or sculpture–was that of space, which led to results much appreciated by critics (Argan, Moravia, Bevilacqua, Menna, Pensabene) and to a recognition awarded by the City of Rome (1958), Prime Minister Segni (International Art Competition, Ravenna 1959) and the Senate Gold Medal (Sassoferrato 1962).

In 1957, a landmark year and a turning point in his artistic career, he attended Toti Scialoja’s classes at the Academy for six months and started experimenting with abstract art.

His first abstract works date back to 1956-1959 and they fit in perfectly with the search for materials and brushstrokes happening in contemporary movements.

His works have been shown in numerous solo exhibitions in Italy (Rome, Milan, Florence), Germany (Dusseldorf, Munich), and Iran, at the Venice Biennial (1956, 1958, 1960, 1962), at the Tehran Biennial (1960, 1962), at the Rome Quadriennale (1960), at the Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil (1963), at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1964) and at the Shiraz Art Festival, Iran (1969).

From 1955 to 1958, Vaziri left for Rome where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. During these years, coinciding with the birth of European Informalism and the American Action Painting, after studying and analysing new modern art movements. In the April of 1956 Vaziri had his first Italian exhibition, displaying his figurative paintings at the Portonovo Art Gallery in Rome. In the same year, he exhibited in Düsseldorf and Munich, in Germany.

In 1952, his first solo exhibition was held at the Iran-America Society in Tehran.

In 1943, after obtaining his diploma at the Agricultural Institute, he applied to the Faculty of Fine Arts at Tehran University (now University of Tehran) and he attended for three years. During his years at university, he felt the influence of impressionism and post-impressionism, especially Van Gogh, in both subject matters and expressive forms.

Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam (Persian: محسن وزیری مقدم; 27 July 1924 – 7 September 2018), was an Iranian-born painter, sculptor, and a professor of art. He has been described as the "pioneer of modern Iranian abstraction."

Mohsen Vaziri was born on 27 July 1924 in Tehran, Qajar Iran.