Social Science Research Council

Pamela Karimi
Between Modernism and Islamism

Unlike the usual propagandistic murals that Iranians have for the most part learned to ignore, the work of the 26-year-old artist, Mehdi Qadiyanlu, demands greater attention. His trompe l'oeil style makes people second-guess what they have just seen. Qadiyanlu uses themes from everyday life, but he also disrupts the commonplace of the everyday: mundane objects become incongruous and mysterious. There is a surrealistic aspect to the predominantly realistic subject matter, where state ideology and politics find no space. Nonetheless, while the eye sees a pedestrian bridge that leads to nowhere, the mind still reads an implicit political message: the uncertain condition of the Iranian youth lifestyle, which is torn between modernism and Islamism.