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Collections

Asad Faulwell
Pillars – Iran (1882-1989)2009

Not on view
Vertical mixed-media work combining painting and collage on a cerulean blue geometric lattice ground, with a central patterned pillar, spiraling figures and serpentine forms, collaged historical portraits, a white horse, and a skeletal hand emerging from the lower left
Mixed-media collage on blue-painted ground with stenciled pattern and a vertical dark blue stripe. Two flower-shaped paper cutouts with gold and turquoise geometric petal borders, each containing a black-and-white photographic portrait: one of a bearded elder man, one of a uniformed man and a woman in formal dress.
Artist or Maker
Asad Faulwell
United States, active Los Angeles, born 1982
Title
Pillars – Iran (1882-1989)
Date Made
2009
Medium
Acrylic and paper on canvas
Dimensions
48 × 24 × 1 1/2 in. (121.92 × 60.96 × 3.81 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Guy and Ann Roberts, New York, courtesy Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York
Accession Number
M.2017.224
Classification
Paintings
Collecting Area
Art of the Middle East: Contemporary
Curatorial Notes

Pillars—Iran (1882–1989) is composed of painted pre-Islamic architectural elements and Islamic patterns paired with collaged portraits of seminal figures in Iran’s recent history, including Mohammad Reza Shah, Mohammad Mossadeq, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The result is a distorted two-dimensional pillar, an eclectic and unstable monument to Iran’s turbulent history, which continues to define present-day Iran.

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.