Shahpour Pouyan - There is no victory but victory

shahpour pouyan

Shahpour Pouyan Artist Statement I was born in the early days of Islamic Revolution in Iran and at the end of the period of the Persian monarchy. I grew up during the longest war of the Twentieth century, and even today we are still living with international sanctions. My whole life has been spent watching our neighboring countries involved in a war. The shadow of the war is something that not even the Sun could fade. When I was a child I used to ask who would be the winner in a war. The adults always replied “the stronger one”. The concept of power is a permanent concern for me and in my different works I depict its relation with other things like politics and wealth, and eroticism and aesthetics. In my early works I had an ironic and critical vision of the relationship between power and monuments- how humans try to immortalize themselves when they have the power and wealth to build such monuments. Historically monumental architecture has been seen as a way to overcome death. It is an obvious display of glory, power and wealth. I use many historical references in my works to demonstrate my mental engagements. One such example is my series depicting the memorial cross of Pope Urban IV[1]. The Christian Pope Urban IV died 1389 AC, and here I have taken his memorial cross and combined it with a bludgeon, thus linking this year to the Iranian year 1389 to highlight the continuity of repression under dictatorships throughout history, and how the expression of power through a religious structure can bring the same reaction throughout time. Symbols such as the cross, the bludgeon and gold are metaphors of dogmatism, power and wealth. In my next series I had a more humorous look at this power/wealth relation. I painted a series of bull hooves capped with decorative helmets. In these paintings, power as the thesis was confronted by wealth as an antithesis, and the final synthesis was a phallic product of both. Phallic forms for me are a reference to the patriarchal society in which we have lived throughout history. We have lived and will live in a world where men are ultimately dominant. My work explores the effects that this masculine notion of power has on human civilization. The interaction of power and wealth has an interesting effect on art, aesthetics, culture and even sexuality. It should come as no surprise that the apogee of artistic creation has always coincided with the summit of each kingdom or dynasty. Human history itself can be viewed as a string composed of the peaks of various societies against time. On the one hand these consist of military conquests, and on the other the production and consumption of high quality artistic output. I am not looking for an answer regarding the effects of power on human history: Instead I am asking more questions. 1. Pope Urban VI (c. 1318 – October 15, 1389), born Bartolomeo Prignano, was Pope from 1378 to 1389.