- Title
- Zaal picks up arms to help Rostam II
- Date Made
- 2009
- Medium
- Digital print on canvas
- Dimensions
- Image: 30 1/4 x 47 1/4 in. (76.84 x 120.02 cm); Sheet: 40 3/8 x 74 in. (102.55 x 187.96 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2011.45.9
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Contemporary
- Curatorial Notes
In his ingenious mixed-media series "Rostam 2 – Return," the Iranian artist Siamak Filizadeh transports the mythical Persian hero Rostam into the context of the present day. Riding a souped-up hybrid vehicle—half horse, half motorcycle—Rostam 2 performs his deeds of valor against the backdrop of twenty-first-century Tehran. Filizadeh has cleverly and seamlessly refashioned this ancient account, enacted across four generations and set amidst tragedy, romance, and heroism, in much the same manner as director Baz Luhrmann modernized Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in the 1996 film version. But in his retelling of this classic Persian tale from the Shahnameh or Book of Kings, the Iranian national epic, Filizadeh bypasses its universalities in favor of more specific social commentary. As with other literary masterpieces, the Shahnameh has an appeal and an elasticity that has allowed successive generations to discover or invent new meanings.
Zal poses rifle in hand to join forces with Rostam 2, with a reclining lion in a traditional Persian landscape.
- Selected Bibliography
- Komaroff, Linda. "The Return Engagement of Rostam," In Ferdowsi, the Mongols and the History of Iran: Art, Literature and Culture from Early Islam to Qajar Persia: Studies in Honour of Charles Melville, edited by Robert Hillenbrand, A.C.S. Peacock, and Firuza Abdullaeva, 381-90. London: I.B. Taurus, 2013.
- Selected Exhibition History
- Rostam 2 -- The Return Series by Siamak Filizadeh. June 2 - December 16, 2012
- Rostam 2 -- The Return Series by Siamak Filizadeh. June 2 - December 16, 2012
