Ali Akbar Sadeghi: Mad

Parallel Circuit is privileged to show for the first time the latest works of Ali-Akbar Sadeghi (b. 1937, Tehran) titled “Mad”.  The exhibition will open on Friday, June 24, 2022 and will be on view through Friday, September 2. Canvas paintings from 2017 are on view, as well as, five masks that Sadeghi has produced in cooperation with AartMaart.  Paintings and masks bring the viewer face-to-face with binaries of good and evil, angel and demon, just and unjust, war and peace, duplicity and virtue, hidden and transparent, as well as inside and outside.

Ali-Akbar Sadeghi is a stalwart in the Iranian art scene. His career has spanned over six decades. Sadeghi's works are rooted in different painting traditions as well as in folk and pop culture of Iran. They nevertheless reflect humanity's deep-seated preoccupations as they focus on today's predicaments. In his works, the ancient and the contemporary coexist. Line plays a central role in works of Sadeghi but in "Mad" color is taking a center stage. The thick layering of color is a way for the artist to underscore his subject matter. Having graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Tehran in 1969, before joining “Kanoon” -the Center for the Intellectual Development of Child and Adolescent- in 1971 as an illustrator and animator, he worked as a graphic designer for many years .

Sadeghi lives and works in Tehran, Iran and has won many awards for his book illustration and animations. He has held numerous solo exhibitions, including a major retrospective at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (2018), and his works have been shown in many group exhibitions. Dastan Gallery showed two works of the artist in "Soft Edge of the Blade" at Frieze's No. 9 Cork Street in February 2022 and at all the three exhibitions of “Mosavarnameh” between 2015 and 2018. Drawings and paintings of Sadeghi are held by many art institutions, including the British Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.