Lot 138: Parastou Forouhar , Iranian B. 1962 Red is My Name, Green is My Name silkscreen on paper, in four parts

each signed, and dated 2008 silkscreen on paper, in four parts

measurements note each: 86 by 86cm.; 33 7/8 by 33 7/8 in.

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

Executed in 2008, this work is number 3 from an edition of 3.
An Iranian artist based in Germany, Parastou Forouhar navigates the no man's land that lies between a lived familiarity with one's origins and an acquired knowledge of the other. Forouhar's work has a double agenda: to scrutinize Western ways of looking at the Orient and to criticize the oppressive regime of Iran with its systemic employment of political repression and inhumane torture. To accomplish this, Forouhar adopts, as her central subject, the deceiving façade of ornaments and decoration by embedding beautiful patterns with overtly political imagery. The artist draws on stereotypically oriental designs to create the intricate motifs that make up the basis of many of her works. But Forouhar's patterns which, at first glance, appear to be inoffensive, aesthetically pleasing forms, upon further inspection, reveal themselves to contain elegantly executed harrowing scenes of torture infliction and/or of faceless, nameless characters who have been humiliatingly bound and blindfolded. But these images are nothing but traumatic memories of her parents's cold murder by some regime officers when she was only a child.
By appropriating and subverting cliché images of the Orient as such, Forouhar wittily challenges Western expectations of this part of the world. Through her stylized cartoon-like figures that are nearly lost in the decorative whole, Forouhar addresses the rift between the romantic surface or the romanticized image of the Orient and its stifling reality. What's more, each of Forouhar's characters also tackles humanitarian questions and critiques the brutal torture and murder of countless victims by slaves who unquestioningly execute the dictates of a tyrannical, fundamentalist government. In My Name is Red, My Name is Green, the artist continues to develop her ornamental language of violent letters and words. Through red or green designs that bring to mind glazed tiles and embroidery, Parastou Forouhar pursues her inquiry into what one sees, what one wants to see, and what is actually there to be seen. In this series, the artist has produced decorative compositions from dangerous objects like scissors and guns as well as from phalluses. The use of phalluses has a particularly symbolic meaning as it alludes to the patriarchal regime's discriminatory policies towards women. Furthermore, when looked at closely, the viewer can discern in these patterns images of tied-up political prisoners whose bodies bend and twist from pain. These bodies are pictured swinging or hanging from their binds, helplessly curling into fetal positions in an attempt to protect their bodies from further abuse, or standing with drooping shoulders that betray their resignation and broken spirit. The title My Name is Red, My Name is Green highlights the anonymity of these victims and their unnoticed or rather unquestioned disappearance. Forouhar's work is a sad yet humorous representation of the literally dangerously uninformed conceptions held by the West of the East, inventions that distract it from the violent storm that brews beneath the surface.