- Title
- Amir Hamza the Lover and the Dancing Zebra
- Date Made
- 1977
- Medium
- Single-channel video
- Dimensions
- Duration: 00:22:21
- Accession Number
- M.2017.240
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Contemporary
- Curatorial Notes
This animation presents a traditional tale of magic, villainy, and thwarted love, and visually blends nineteenth-century furnishings and costumes with contemporary (1977) elements. It includes a segment of a dancing zebra, actually an enchanted princess, whose stripes move uncannily with her body. The figure of the horned demon who bewitched the princess was based on Amir-Abbas Hoveyda, Iran’s prime minister from 1965 to 1977.
- Selected Bibliography
- Komaroff, Linda. In the Fields of Empty Days: The Intersection of Past and Present in Iranian Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2018.