Lot 108: Sara Rahbar (Iranian, b. 1976)

Sara Rahbar (Iranian, b. 1976)
American Democracy
flags, embroidery and metal ornaments
50 x 67.7in. (127 x 172cm.)
Executed in 2007

PROPERTY FROM A MIDDLE EASTERN PRIVATE COLLECTION
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Sara Rahbar's works express the displacement felt by many of her generation who, faced with the twin challenges of the Iranian revolution and the Iran/Iraq war, had fled with their families to the West. Rahbar now divides her time between Tehran and New York and much of her work, here represented by an example from the Flag series, expresses this disjuncture. Here she combines traditional materials from the Middle East with flags of the United States.
In this unusual piece the United States flag is superimposed on the black flag of mourning carried during the processions of the month of Muharram which commemorate the matrydom of Imam Hussein. One of her more explicitly political works, the United States flag is cut to the shape of the Middle East and West Asia, suggesting that notion of 'one size fits all' democracy is not necessarily a perfect fit.