Parviz Habibpour
Audio of the Entire Interview
Interview Transcript
Part 01
As far as I can remember, back in the days when I was a kid
I used to have pencils and colored pencils with me all the time.
I would carry them around with me wherever I went
and I would draw on anything, from sheets of paper to the walls
I was really interested in drawing and painting from my very early days.
After I finished primary school, in spite of the fact that
I was one of the good students in my class
I had to drop out and go look for a job in stalls or
cafes or green grocer’s to help my family make ends meet.
I also used to work at a mirror factory in Darva’zeh Gha’r in Tehran
The place I worked in had a stall right in front of it where
I used to rent books from for one Rial (Iranian currency) a day
The owner of that stall was the same age as I was and we had made friends with each other
As the result he found out about my passion for drawing and painting
and one day he just turned to me and said “You know what?
I think now that you have this much interest
and talents for it, you should let me take you to a class
where you could start learning it in a proper way.”
and one day he just turned to me and said “You know what?
I think now that you have this much interest
Anyways, I agreed and he took me with him to Mr.Houshang Peyman’s art gallery
in Ka’kh (Now called Felestin) square
and introduced me and also registered my name there
He even paid for the first month’s tuition, since I was broke and had no money for it myself.
This was how I actually started practicing painting properly for the first time in my life.
I got my high school diploma in the year 1343 in literature studying
in night classes since I had dropped out after primary school.
All my passion back then was to study at the university of fine arts
but they told me since I was older than twenty five years at the time
therefore I couldn’t enter college according to the rules and regulations back then.
That and some other issues I had to face on the sides back then finally
convinced me to make up my mind about moving to the Soviet Union (now called Russia)
and continue my studies at a college there.
Anyways, I finally did in the end and was there for about four years.
As I returned, they arrested and put me in jail for five years
as a political prisoner between the years 1347 and 1352 since
I had moved to the Soviet Union and come back here without permission and also because
of those issues I mentioned I’d had on the sides with them before moving out of the country.
Those were the years when the irregular troops had emerged
It was also the time for the opposition campaigns
to come out which I witnessed them all first-hand myself.
Naturally, all those events happening around me had their influence on my way of working
In fact, I remember the largest proportion of them which I presented in the year 1354
in my first ever art exhibit were related to my years in prison
I remember even the critics had categorized them into
three groups of landscapes, mistakes , and the ones in prison.
The way I see it after those works I still chose to continue working in the realism style.
Quite contrary to the general public opinion a realist artist would never just make
direct copies of whatever there is in their surroundings
In fact, that would be defined as naturalism and not realism.
As a matter of fact in a lot of cases reality is not what most people see,
and it would actually be realism which would discover those facts and show it to people
or would even uncover the hidden truths which
are being kept from most people to see and reveal those to them
what is more, it would then just depend on the realist artist and the
way they choose to portray those truths for their audience.
As an example let’s bring up the topic of politics
shall we? Now, if we focus on the exploitative view
some powerful countries have over the world in general
we would realize that what you see in the exterior
is for their representatives to seem like really nice
and clean guys who would even smell good and everything,
and it is in a way the reality which we can see in them as well.
Now, if for instance an artist manages to reveal the true colors and
intentions behind this appealing posture
only then this would be called a realistic approach in the art of painting
because we give credits to the contents and intentions and not the appearance
In fact, I believe we can put our message through to the audience in a variety of shapes and forms.
One of the critics had written about me and
I quote “What Habib Pour does is to constantly move around from one style
to the other and therefore is in a way just wandering among them.
Well, even if this is true, it wouldn’t be any different from my way of defining it,
the fact that in my view artists can put their messages across
using a variety of shapes and forms as I said earlier.
Well, in fact to some extent they are right, cause some of
my works in the past seemed like they’d been done in the cubist style.
For example, I have got a work of oil paint going back to
the time before the revolution in Iran
cause they are in fact very, very different from each other the ones before and after
Anyways, the forms in which I had figured and then decided to portray the misery in the person
you could see in it is in the cubist style, cause I felt back then
that cubism would show it in a much better way.
Way I see it this work is considered a realistic one it has been done in the cubist style
but the contents is all about realism
In fact, one of Picasso’s master pieces Guernica is
also considered a totally realistic work in terms of its contents.
I have got another work which I named “Review”
and it shows a military superior officer in review of his under command soldiers.
Nothing in this work has got real forms to them, neither the soldiers nor the general
and not even the background you see
It really resembles a colored caricature,
but in terms of its contents it is again considered a work of realism.
What I wanted to portray there was militarism
As we know militarism is about conquest.
In fact, that’s the reason why it is called militarism in the first place
I remember the first question that came to mind as
I started thinking about it as my subject was finding out what military I was going to refer to
Because I didn’t want to put my finger on any
particular country there, but to criticize militarism in general
Therefore, I had to figure out a particular form for it.
What was finally seen on the canvass took some time to develop
In fact, this would be true about almost all artworks in general
The idea doesn’t just pop in your head instantly
It always takes its time to get processed and revised until it gradually get its final form in the end.
I remember at the time when I had just started my career
as a painter Ilya Repin was my ideal role model.
Point is back in the days there wasn’t this many art schools available to us as there is today
and neither did we have this many facilities through which one could
connect themselves to the world of art in general
What we did have access to was only a few books
most of which were Russians
I remember I used to make efforts for my works to resemble those I’d seen in those books
but after actually moving there to russia and studying
at their colleges and getting to know their social realism style in painting
which were in fact mostly very different from
works of my favorite ones like Repin or Solikov or Aivazovsky
I remember I started making my efforts for mines not to resemble theirs this time
because this time I wanted for my works not to be like any of those but mine only.
Every time I start looking at some of my early days works
they make me laugh, because of the flaws I see in them
in terms of their drawings and paintings
even the ways in which I had tried to portray some of those “mental images”
I wanted to put through back then on canvass for the audience to see
which were in fact considered “influential”
back then. Well, now they actually as I said only make me laugh.
I think good artworks are the ones that would be less repetitive
with newer ways of expression in them
One of my favorite early days works in terms of the way of expressing is the one I named
“the happy family”, which shows a couple
and their child in a very colorful frame wearing very cheerful and happy masks
Outside this colorful frame however the rest of the canvass is all but gray
and parts of their bodies outside that colorful frame resembles
their skeletons as if they have been hanged for quite a while.
I mean, the contrast between what you see inside and what you see outside that colorful frame.
This is in fact among those works of mine which makes
and gives me the feeling of fulfillment
both in terms of its contents and also in terms of compatibility in form
Another reason is because it is among those works
of mine which was actually acclaimed by the critics
whose opinions have always been important to me.
The one you can see behind me is also another example of such works
which hasn’t been presented yet
I named it “formation of life” and I can say I like it
At least for now I do.
my opinion, if you don’t have issues like hunger or a place to stay of course
because then there is all these really,
really interesting things here to learn for us you know
so for instance I tell them I think in one life we should just work on painting
or in another just work on music, or in another on acting, or writing, or space, or math, you know?
There are a lot of magnificent things in this world to try and learn and enjoy!