Ghobad Shiva
Audio of the Entire Interview
Interview Transcript
Part 01
I was born in Hamedan, I grew up in a cultural and mystical family
At that time, the birthday was not mentioned at all, it is mentioned now, but my late father wrote the birth of his children on the back of the Quran.
I once looked and saw that my birthday was on the night of Friday the 4th of Bahman 1319 at 12 o’clock at night when these were written by Baba there.
My father was very interested in naming his children after Iran, so they chose Ghobad’s name for me, and my last name is Shiva.
I grew up in that family, my father recited poetry, weaved threads and they were followers of Ghamam Hamedani.
They knew Iranian music very well, they had a very good handwriting
I remember that Baba used to describe the time of Reza Shah when everyone had to choose a family because before that there was no family and only a name.
And he had gone to the Ghomam of Hamedani that you choose a family for us
He also said that if you call this Shiva a poem, leave it Shiva, so we also have this Shiva from the Ghomam of Hamedani.
There was a neighborhood in Hamedan called Dordabad or Dorudabad, right behind the tomb of the current Bu Ali Sina.
Where I was born and raised, at the end of our alley was the Mohammadi school where I was preparing at the time, we were preparing then and now I do not know what its name is
During elementary school, I went to Razi Primary School, for high school, I went to Pahlavi High School
It was in high school that I started painting with the impression that people had in those years
I later thought about why I went to painting, I found the answer for myself that
There was literature, mysticism, music in our house, but we had nothing of the visual arts
Once upon a time there was a painting by an old man named Kargar, in which Baba was very close to Mr. Kargar
And he always took my hand and when he went to Mr. Kargar, he took me to his studio.
He was also a good classical painter and I saw those paintings and these two things made me pay more attention to painting.
I even remember that my father bought me an accordion that was bigger than my body to entertain me, but I never had any choice but to whistle music.
But I always painted, it was colored powders that we made on a piece of fiber
They sent postcards to America from one of my half-brothers, and I used them as a model and drew them.
And this is how I got acquainted with painting until I found out that the late Mr. Saifullah Golparian, who was our handicraft teacher in high school
I found out that he has an atelier that teaches painting, Mr. Golparian also plays the guitar, plays the piccolo flute, and they knew classical music well.
They were also our handicraft teachers, once in their class, well, then we could make handicrafts at that time, for example, with the saw of the Eiffel Tower and make camels, that was what handicrafts were.
And I did not have, he called me that you have a craft, I did not have but I had put one of my paintings in my pocket
I said I do not have, but I know this, he looked and said you pulled this yourself, I thought that now he is punishing me and taking me out of the class
He said very well, where did you learn? I said to myself and in the yard of our blood
He encouraged me a lot and his encouragement was really helpful for me, if he could tell you, for example, why you did not emboss
I later found out that they have a training class, but it was for girls, well, they would not let the boys in either.
I told my father how I could go to him
Well, my father was also familiar with him, in any case, one day he came home and said that I saw Mr. Golparian.
And they said that since we know you and you are from a noble family, there is no problem, your son should come to the girls’ class
It was that I had already taken off my wings and went to serve him and I was there for many years and I learned a lot.
From now on, painting as a copy of Rapin’s work and the things that came then, which were in fact the work of a series of Russian painters, and we were copying them.
I learned a lot there, from painting eggs to what to do on ladies skirts to rap and blue paintings.
I copied all this in Mr. Golparian’s studio until I became his assistant.
That is, when he did not come, I used to teach the children
I was studying natural sciences in high school, but I ran away from class and went to the deserts of Hamedan and painted.
Even for the final exam they gave, I instead of sitting down and reviewing my lessons for the exam.
I would go and have a tripod and paint the so-called Van Gogh in the deserts of Hamedan.
And finally I got my diploma from there until I heard that there is a place in Tehran called the Faculty of Fine Arts
Another field of painting had become my ideal, and I was saying that I might go there one day.
Anyway, I came the first year and took the entrance exam, here I saw that there were sculptures that we had to design antique with charcoal that I had never seen charcoal at all
The first year was natural that I was not accepted, but the following year the late Professor Hamidi, who was a professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts and he was also from Hamedan.
I got their addresses from their families and came a month before the entrance exam and went to serve Hamidi.
To work with charcoal, these sculptures we had never seen were statues of Venus, Hercules, plaster sculptures
For the second year, I became acquainted with the design with charcoal and the design of these sculptures, now known as antique design.
I learned well and was accepted to university, but my problem emotionally was how to tell Baba that I had to go to Tehran.
But well, when they saw the newspaper themselves and my name was on the entrance exams, he came and said that you were accepted.
He said that I could send you 300 tomans a month, 300 tomans
He also had a piece of carpet that he gave me, I came to Tehran in 1339-40, I enrolled in the Faculty of Fine Arts in the field of painting
I had already reached where I wanted to go
Part 02
The sweetest time of my life was when I was a student, painting from morning to whenever I wanted.
I remember that one night it was 3 midnight, Mr. Jafari and I were painting in the studio
Suddenly the door opened and Engineer Seyhoun, who was then the head of the Faculty of Fine Arts, came to you and said, “What are you doing?”
We said we were painting and this person made so much money
We said that Mr. Engineer, it is 3 o’clock after midnight, what are you doing in college?
He said that I was a guest somewhere and now I was returning home when I saw that the studio lights were on. I said let me go and see what is going on.
Our professors at that time were the late Mr. Javadipour, the engineer Seyhoun, the late Heydarian, who were themselves students of Kamal al-Molk.
The first semester, when Engineer Seyhoun saw the works that I had drawn and painted from nature in the deserts of Hamedan.
In the first semester, they put an exhibition of those works in the Faculty of Fine Arts for me
I went to university in the morning, most of the night we slept on the model mattress. Now I and a few other classmates, such as Mr. Nami, Mr. Jafari, the late Morteza Momayez
Aydin Aghdashloo, Abbas Kiarostami, we had a special passion in that college
The projects were announced in a showcase every week, assuming that this week the first year students have an antique design.
We were in the studio, there were designs of gladiator statues, there were dogs and horses, there were Venus and Hercules
We adjusted our chassis to do this during the week
Well, we worked and then I remember that on Wednesday morning, the late Professor Heydarian came to correct
I was careful and Mr. Heydarian came and I said is he a good teacher? it’s okay?
I do not remember saying that the music in it is not in your work, he said that and left
In the middle of the second year, the teaching system changed there, meaning that each professor was given a studio
For example, the studio of the late Ms. Behjat Sadr, the studio of the late Javad Hamidi, the studio of the late Professor Javadipour and the children chose the studio.
It was not like that before, all the masters came one by one and worked with the children and left.
But then their system changed and I fell into the studio of the late Mr. Javadipour
It was in those years that we came with the love and enthusiasm we had, and with our own allowance, we rented the Iran Gallery in front of the university, which was a floor of chelokbabi and was empty.
We fixed it and opened the Iran Gallery, with our own allowance and not with the help of the government and the faculty, and we named it the Iran Gallery.
And our love was that we would go to the gallery during the hours we did not work in the painting studio.
And we exhibited our own work and the work of others who wanted it
And we added a publishing section where we published a few books, Mr. Rouin Pakbaz and Mr. Judet worked very hard for these books.
Or it was a good hangout for artists and art lovers
I was, the deceased was Momayez, the deceased was Qandriz, Rouin was a clean man, Judet and Mahallati were, Sirus was the owner, Pilaram was
When the late Qandriz died, we changed the gallery board from Iran to Qandriz
And as long as we were students, and even a year or two later, and then everyone went to their own
You see, when we were students, we saw each other for 24 hours, but then, for example, one was transferred to Rasht, the other went to Ahvaz, that is, it happened like this
It was for a while, but it was no longer active until I went to the United States and realized that it was completely closed.
We had a lesson called Decorative Composition, in these projects I took the first mansion from Engineer Seyhoun and the rest.
We later found out that the work we were doing as a decorative composition was the same graphic we are talking about today.
For example, it was a poster design, it was a medal design, for example, it was a design for flower exhibition booths, these were our projects.
But in the end, it was as if I had more talent, and in all of this, I got the first mansion.
But the fact that I paid more attention to art graphics was really the encouragement that Mr. Seyhoun had given me.
Part 03
I remember there was a Persian-American company where my half-brother, who was much older than me, worked.
One day he came and told me that you know how to draw a calendar? That was when I was in Amirabad, I said yes
He said kill because Mr. Gabrielian wants a calendar
He had imported Lau liquid soap and wanted to advertise Lau liquid soap in this calendar.
That I took something in the dormitory of Amirabad and gave it to my older brother and he had taken it and that gentleman liked it very much
And that welcome was passed on to me through my brother, and I was very happy
In fact, I had painted and it was not a graphic, I painted a bunch of flowers
That made me go for a while, for example, to learn to type, to learn to type.
The same coin printing house that still exists, where I went and became an apprentice
I started the graphics from lithography and these, that is, I shaved 10 cents of zinc.
But when I shaved zinc, I learned the meaning of color separation
And I was drawn to these advertising organizations, but the first income I had was that I called Baba at night because Baba did not send me money.
Then he said no, what are you doing there, you need money, I said I will call whenever I need and tell you
Fortunately, I never had to take money again
In the center of the beautiful advertisement that was on Berlin Alley at that time, Mr. Nemati, I also went there part-time.
I learned a lot from Mr. George, who worked there, but I did not like working for advertising agencies.
But I had to do this because it would at least cost me to paint.
An image was found that was illustrative, I immediately said goodbye to the advertising agency
I went to a magazine called Talash, where I was doing illustration work, and I liked that job well.
Then I remember that I called Farshid Mesghali and told him to come and live with me and I would do the illustration, so we started working together there.
A gentleman named Dr. Safa used to come to Talash magazine and often come and sit next to me.
Dr. Safa said that your work is so good, why don’t you go to TV
To prepare for it, I created a portfolio for my graphic and photography work.
In addition, I went and did some research on television technology
I made decorations with cardboard and took photos and Ms. Farideh Gohari should have seen my work.
But he was not the originator, we would come tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, but they were not.
One day when I was in front of them, there was a knocking sound, they said it was Farideh Gohari’s footsteps.
I saw a lady come, I greeted her and we went to the decor room
In the decor room, I also saw that there were some people who spoke French to each other, even though they were Iranian.
I said, “Ali, where did I come from? These are all French educated and I am a rural child.”
I put some of my work on the lightbox so that he could see the slides.
At this time, two people came into the room, one of whom was Iranian and one of whom was French, and the decorators all stood up, and I did not know who they were.
They talked for a while with the children of the decor, when they came to pass, when they arrived at the lightbox, they took my slides and looked at them.
Then Mr. Ironi asked Farideh, “Who are these people?” He said it’s his job, I was small and thin
He said, “Where did you study?”
One day, the art festival office had a meeting in the same brick building
Then our boss, Ms. Gohari, said that bring the different sizes of this poster, which was now 100×70 and smaller, to the Art Festival office in the afternoon, and we have a meeting there.
We said eyes, we went in the afternoon and knocked on the door and a meeting was held and I gave them the posters.
And while I was standing, Mr. Saffari was saying that if we could have a poster for the painting and sculpture section, it would be very good, he was saying in the meeting.
I was eavesdropping, but Farideh Gohari said that Baba gave this poster to Houshang, who meant the same as Houshang Kazemi, for 6 months.
I said I would kill, everyone turned and looked and said do you know?
I said now that you do not have a poster, if I drew and it was good that it is good in your favor, if it is bad that you do not have a poster anymore
They told me to go and kill it, so I put 100 ۰ 70 paper in front of me and designed the artwork.
I did not sleep at night and stayed in the office until this was over, I called Mr. Saffari tomorrow morning
He said that at 11 o’clock I will come there because I have a TV and I will visit you too
He came at 11 o’clock and saw this, he said when did you draw this? I said last night, he said did you draw? I said I drew another saw myself
He liked it very much and then said what about printing? I said that I would print it for you in one day, and my signature came below
We printed it immediately and delivered it, and when this poster was distributed in Shiraz, many foreigners came and I signed the poster and gave it to them.
These works of Shiraz Art Festival, because they were going abroad, were an opportunity for me to start this work
And I started and it was effective, for example, I came and used a calligraphy in the fifth art festival, which had no precedent in Iranian graphics before.
When I was working for him, most of my colleagues said that you are Amli, which means that if you do not work like a foreigner, you will become Amal.
But when the same poster was published, the poster went to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which is now part of their collection.
He also went to the collection of the Georges Pompidou Museum in France, to the ……… Design Center
Dedicated books in the field of graphics were published in the world
In the Encyclopانیdia Britannica in 2005 was an article on graphic art in developing countries
In that article, the thinker who wrote that article wrote that everyone is influenced by Western graphics.
But there are still people from Iran and this region from Asia who introduced me
And one person from Argentina, one person from Africa, these are the people whose graphic art is up to date.
But the character of their culture is in their work and they have their own personality
Which was registered in the Encyclopedia Britannica and since then I am still trying to see what God wills.
Finally, with the problems that the industrial management system created in television, they gave me the least verdict
If I had, I would have worked as an art director for Soroush Publications and for his books and magazines.
Then I protested and the industrial management said that you said, you are not a bachelor of graphics, your bachelor is in painting and I saw that he is right
Because I said there that someone with a bachelor’s degree in graphics, for example, gets a point like this.
They said that according to what you gave yourself, because your education is not specialized, well, you are in that table here
And I saw that he was right, and I did not want to change the rules
There was a time when the late Karim Emami was the managing director of Soroush Publications. I said, “Mr. Emami, I will be at your service for another month, then I will leave.”
He said where, I said I would resign and go out and open an atelier like the rest of my comrades
He said no, no, I said look at the result, I have 27-8 people here, I made it there at all, then now they gave me the order of a graphic designer.
He was the conductor of New York, he came to Soroush Publications to see me, he said that Perth University is also very good
I gave him a tube of my posters and he was leaving for New York 2-3 days later
He went to Perth University, one of the best design schools in the United States with 130 years of experience
It took less than a week for me to be accepted and I immediately went to Perth University and got a radio scholarship.
But when I went there, the revolution started here and no money came to me
Part 04
In 1977, we went to the United States.
Finally I found the university and went inside, a huge garden with different buildings for different disciplines.
I found the design section and went to the room that the secretary had said
I opened the door and saw that there was a big table there and some professors were sitting around the table and the works that I had sent by Hadi Hazawa were on the table.
They talked and then finally asked me what do you want to teach here?
I said no, I came to study, they said why, you’s having so much work and international awards, what do you want to study?
I said because my growth was in sensory graphics, because it was not a graphic field that our generation could go and study.
That is, I want to learn the scientific issues of this kind of communication
And immediately the same professors there put up an exhibition of the works I had sent there, in the Pert Gallery.
It is a very large gallery that had 50-60 of my posters, which we no longer had the money to frame, but we put them in plastic and hung them, and the exhibition opened.
But the night before, I had taken with me the books Iran, Paul Firoozeh, and Iran Elements of Destiny for the late photographer Rolof Bani.
Before the exhibition, I took a slide of these pictures with a camera, and the opening of my exhibition was by showing pictures of Iran.
A large crowd had come and sat down, but at first they did not know where Iran was
Then, if they knew anything about mixing Ka with the Arabs, there would be a discussion about camels and palm trees and such.
Then these slides that I was throwing, for example, they would say, oh, you have a street, I would say, yes, we had a street before you.
It was weird for them at all, then in the meantime, for example, I would say that in the poster on my wall, I was influenced by this role.
In that one, under the influence of those scenes, they were very surprised at all, and their brain image changed.
Then they looked at the works and it was reflected a lot in the newspapers and until 2-3 days later a group of people entered the gallery.
They had certain devices that I did not know what they were, because if it is a cameraman, well, we know what a camcorder is.
Then I said, what are you doing here? These were a group that actually made films of the current civilization in all disciplines
Which was later dropped into the sky with this space equipment with the idea that if one time the civilization of the earth were destroyed and another civilization would be created.
Let the new civilization find these castes and these things in space and see that yes, there was a civilization here and some people worked and lived, they came to do this and took it.
One of America’s very good designers is a person who is still alive, Milton Glazer
I think Milton Glaser is an Oriental man and not an American because his work is something else entirely.
They had an interview with him in Tamasha magazine for a year, and we gave that interview, they translated it and put it in Tamasha magazine.
Then we put some of Milton Glazer’s work on the cover of Tamasha magazine
I took this magazine with me when we went to America, I said I will see it one day, finally
I went to Mr. Glaser’s salon, the secretary said what are you doing? I said I wanted to see Mr. Milton Glaser
He said did you take the time? I said no, I came this way, this is another behavioral difference that one must take time
Then I said, “Look, this time I’m heavy, and when I saw Milton Glaser at the bottom of the photo hall, I saw that he was sitting there with some others.”
Then I said, well, now you give me time, this also gave me another month
I said stay my portfolio here because it’s too heavy for me to bring it back
He said no, what if there is a fire here, I said I will write that if these are burned I will not have any claim at all
We were arguing that Glaser had seen from the bottom that someone was arguing in front of him and he got up and came
And he asked the secretary what happened, he said this gentleman did not take the time and they want to meet with you
I saw Mr. Glaser and said that I came from Iran, he said oh Iran, let’s go and he took me to his room
When I went to their room, I saw a series of Iranian hanging lines that had turned upside down on the wall.
I said let them hit the wall like this first, he said I like them very much but I do not know what he wrote and I hit them on the wall like this
I remember I gave him the watch magazine and he said oh what am I doing there
I said you had an interview in a graphic designer magazine, Iranian designers like you very much, you look very oriental
The summary of that article has been translated and published in Persian in this magazine
This is how he turned the page and said, “Why are you putting an ad on your cover?” I said no, we will open the magazine from here
In short, what are you doing in New York? I said I came and I am studying at Perth University and I am looking for a job, he said come from tomorrow
I do not remember that the next day, at 11:30, Mr. Glaser came and I went and said that Mr. Glazer came, but there is nothing to do in the morning.
He opened his desk drawer and handed me a book, and it was German
And it was translated into English, and now they had the cover designed by Milton Glaser’s studio.
Called How to see real Paris, the original German book, he said give it a cover design
And I was working and studying at the same time until I finished my studies and got a ticket and returned to Iran.
I came to Iran but I had nothing, no house and nothing, we finally found a place that one of the families gave us and we went and settled
And I got up and went to the radio, I continued to work but I was no longer responsible,
In the past, I was actually responsible for bringing the rest of the kids and things to a good frontier.
But I became a simple graphic designer and then I continued like this until 1372 when I retired
Part 05
Naturally, my way is that now that I’m talking to you, I’re also thinking about an logo they ordered.
I think the same way, I drive, I think, I draw in my brain
I’m eating dinner and I’m thinking, I’m talking to you and I’m thinking about it
There is a place where I get results in my brain, then I come and I may think for 10 days and do it in 1 hour, this is my way of working
In addition, being Iranian and its impact can be mixed, it is not learnable
We can not leave a class for a semester where all Iranians think, no, it is not learnable, it can be mixed
You have to love this country, you have to love the culture here, you have to love your family, you have to love your behavior
And all of this, when you let go of yourself, it also comes out
Not that I should come and let an Islamic man become an Iranian, this is not it at all
For example, today’s generation does not know this pope at all, but they know the name of Michael Jackson’s grandson, but this Mr. Pope, who came and registered Iranian art, does not know him at all.
You see, they say that graphics are not an art, they are right, graphics are a profession
But if you are an artist and you do graphic work, your artistic point of view and belief will flow in the cartoon.
From now on, this type of production will become artistic graphics, superior to other works that are done, for example, in advertising organizations and advertisements, these are good professions.
Yaro sells sandwiches and he sells these graphics, all over the world and all societies need things like this.
But among the graphic designers of the world, there are those who open new perspectives and new windows in their work, which I named graphic designers.
And these are definitely the artists who turn to graphics, so their productions also have cultural and artistic value.
Otherwise, advertising in this magazine and that magazine and the bottom of the newspaper, these are not really good art, they are a kind of masterpiece
There is a big gap between mastery and artistry, like a carpenter who is called Avesta carpenter when he builds a strong stool.
But you see, someone comes in and intervenes, I can work on this stool in a different way, this artist is a carpenter, in cooking and photography and all the arts.
One of my ideals as a student was why we were consuming the aesthetics of another country in the field of graphics.
For example, now if you remember the posters that were produced in Iran, those good ones were a series of Polish graphics dubbed into Persian.
Only his writings were translated into Persian, which also had a bitterness because Polish graphics are masterpieces but bitter.
From that time on, my head smelled of green beans. My mother said that Polish graphics were created by Polish graphic artists, but not by their president.
Japanese graphics, these character graphics were created by Japanese artists, not the Emperor of Japan
We should do the same for our artists, but my concern in this profession was how it is possible that one day the world would say Iranian graphics, as Polish graphics say.
In the productions of the graphic subgroup, there is only a poster in which you can put your own thoughts.
You can not do anything in the logo, you can not do anything on the cover of the magazine
For this reason, when you look around the world, for example, there is a museum of posters, but it is not a museum of logos or brochures.
But there are poster museums because posters are what I’m saying. Sir, the Tehran International Book Fair wants the client, but the rest is my own work.
Both in terms of ideas and in terms of executive technique
There is now a poster museum all over the world, no logo museum anywhere in the world, no brochure museum anywhere in the world
Mr. Henry de Toulouse-Lautrec posters are still being printed around the world
Because of the artwork that is in them and because Mr. Lutherk’s look is in them
Mr. Glazer’s Bob Dylan poster has been printed nearly 18 million times so far, not because of Bob Dylan, but because of the graphics in it.
And still in print, it’s the 60’s for Bob Dylan to make a cover page with a poster attached to it.
And this poster is still being printed in the world, by Milton Goli himself Zar says he even went to one of the ….. Indians and saw that his poster was there, this is very important
The only reason I like Mr. Glaser is that he wrote in his book that he took this part of the poster from the twists and turns of Iranian miniatures.
I’m always looking for innovation, not to repeat myself, a good painter has style but a designer does not
The designer orders the glass at one time and the Othello poster at another time.
I never capture myself in technique, to imprison myself to do something that they say is Shiva
The painter can, but we have to think about this in our own way and work for the Othello poster in the form of the Othello poster.
Part 06
Many teachers in the classroom now tell the children that the graphics came from the West, but this is not the case at all.
Graphics did not come from the West, but Persian, Iranian artists used their art where it had a use for the people.
This is what today’s graphics say, meaning you are in all these excavations from prehistoric times to Safavid times.
Everything that has been excavated has not yet been excavated, everything that has come out is graphic with modern expression.
An Iranian artist would come and spend his art on this bowl where you drink water, in glasses, carpets and tiles.
We did not have a museum painting at all, even our miniatures in today’s language are illustrations
Because his art was located somewhere next to the poems of Saadi, Ferdowsi and Hafez, that is, illustration.
So graphics do not come from the West, I do not know why this is, our work with today’s expression is graphics
Farangi, for example, has a carpet, we have a carpet that loves people bit by bit, well, this is a graphic.
Well, this carpet designer did not come to exhibit, he wove the carpet and you slept on it.
These beautiful bowls, everything in our museums are graphic expressions of today, and the artists worked on them.
We do not have any artist who, for example, painted during the Achaemenid period
Persepolis bas-reliefs are graphic, meaning they say something, not decorative
How those different empires lined up and came, these are all graphic
But we did not have the art of painting at all, never, except from the Safavid period when the comings and goings began.
The art of our painting was the maximum of those screenings, or from the Qajar period onwards, those coffee house paintings.
I am a person who says that the best poster in the world is the inscription of the Hamedan treasury. In fact, we say the treasury, but it is a war letter
This is the first poster, but it was not printed at that time, but look where the artist did it in that city at that time, and people still see it.
And how simple it is to make 2 geometric squares and 3 columns in organic stone
I think if they ask me what the best poster in the world is, I say it is, it has been around for 5,000 years.
The mindset of the Orientals, especially us Iranians, is our lexical mindset
That is, we were able to give birth to Maulana, to give Saadis and Hafiz, to give Shamlou, to give Sohrab Sepehri.
But in the visual arts, we did not give the world anything equivalent to them
Because it is verbal thinking that we have verbal thinking
Or visual thinking that Westerners have visual thinking
It’s that we have a poet, the equivalent of you have a sculptor as much as Rumi to give to the world, we do not have
Now, for example, young people work in minimalism. I am not against minimalism, but not that we should bring its statics from the West.
You saw, for example, our masonry, tiny tiles, but there is one place that is just plaster, this is our minimalism.
At the very least, painters should get ideas from them, not work the same way
The late Marco Gregorian Papaart, who had become fashionable, at least he came and left our Sangak, Daisy left our broth, you know
But today’s generation does not do that, we have much more modern things than the West, if we have the wisdom to see it and bring it to work.
Suddenly one of our colleagues, who was against me, said that they made the sun shine from your work in Kashan
I said are you serious? This is very good, because that Kashani craftsman saw this and liked it and went and made the sun with it.
Incidentally, this is what I want, that is, Ironi is looking for beauty, if something was beautiful, he looks and then now he gets the message.
Go to the streets now, people do not look at the graphics they posted in the streets at all because they are not beautiful.
You see, we have a culture that is full of secrets and mysteries, I say this so that children can understand.
I say that, for example, parents see that this boy is losing weight and then it turns out that he has fallen in love.
Our culture is never a direct culture, a Frenchman goes when he loves a girl and tells her that he loves you, now either he accepts or he does not.
But Here the cove turns yellow, it goes to the alley, so and so, until the mother of that mother sees this and these, well, there is a lot of mystery in this
My works are never in line with the subject, but in parallel with the subject, and this is the Iranian spirit.
There is a shame in this, there is a glory in this, you do not want me to leave Islam to become Iranian or Shamseh
For example, whoever worked on the poster for the art festival posted photos of your throne, I never did that.
At that time, when we went to establish, for example, the Graphic Association, the Ministry of Interior did not know what graphics were at all.
But now the grocer in the alley also knows what graphics are, so that generation opened these windows.
But now the problem is that, for example, the statistics that have been taken, in the United States, where cultural, artistic and consumer graphics are actually very high, produce up to 600 graduates a year.
And in Iran, 6,000 a year, our country does not need it, even if everyone is a genius
Part 07
Everywhere in the world, from prehistoric times to the present, creativity is at hand
And later the machine reproduced that creativity, now you see the same things that make up the space
For example, those characters were designed by the designers and then they became three-dimensional, so wherever there is creativity, there must be a hand.
You see, this is not to say that I believe this is a fact
These very stylish cars that you see, when you go and look, you see that someone made this form by hand.
Later, yes, it was molded and made and technologies came into it, but creativity is by hand.
I tell the children in the class that, sir, you want to play with the computer, go well and do it.
You want to run by hand, go and do it well, but do not think with the computer
The argument is that when you go to the computer now, there is so much information, that is, very good information
But it is dangerous to be given so much information that you no longer think about yourself
Children are now given so much information through the computer that they have no time at all to sit and think for themselves.
Is it that Taqi is fine? So save it, it’s all over, these are computer pupets
This means that when you die, for example, the Art Club of America’s director, everyone has a pencil in their hand
The Westerners themselves invented this computer and now we buy it, in the field of art
I do not say these things about myself, these are his articles, they were written and read
The ones that, for example, today’s generation, until you give them an order, go and sit behind the computer
The West, which is itself a computer maker, calls this type of computer pupets exposure
pupets means a toy puppet that does not move by itself but is moved by another with a thread, the western itself has given this name, not me
Next, the products that these computer pupets make and feed to the people are called video prostitution.
Because now when you look at magazines, newspapers and advertisements, they all come from the same factory.
Usually children ask me to go and look at a book, sir, I say go and look at a book whenever you feel sick, if you are weak you will be affected by that book
I am still being sent the book of the latest posters in the world, as well as the logos of the world
Whenever you find yourself as a character designer, then you should see what your co-worker is doing in that world.
But if he is weak and can not do something himself, today’s generation is like this, he goes and flips through a book and takes a photo with his mobile camera and shakes it and puts it and feeds people.
Plus, when you look at the people we know today as designers, filmmakers, or whatever.
These are the people who read painting first, of course reading painting is wrong because painting is not readable, in fact they finished the field of painting
Abbas Kiarostami well read painting, Aydin Aghdashloo, late Momayez, Bandeh and Mesghali
Painting makes a lot of sense, as long as you love it, otherwise if you just want to pass the unit to get a bachelor’s degree, no
But when I thought more seriously about graphics, when we were studying at the University of Tehran, I said in the previous meeting about the Kandriz Gallery and Iran.
Well, we were passionate, we were in love, it was not for sale at all, you know
Well, I did some experimental work that I remember living in a basement on Ghavam al-Saltanah Street.
I came and under the influence of the city walls I believed that the walls of each area capture the personality of the people who live there
For example, a wall in the alley of an Arab neighborhood is different from a wall in Niavaran.
So I did some work, I’m saying that now in the field of painting, that there was no color at all and that’s all.
Basically, I would pour the plaster on the canvas and do some work on it and leave no paint.
So we had an exhibition and this exhibition took, it took a lot, I remember that Aydin wrote about it in the magazine of art and thought
Well, I was at an age where I had to experiment, I did something completely different at the next exhibition
We came to have an exhibition, the gallery owner said no, if the previous work, it was good
No gallery was willing to leave my work, I left this work at the same Valiasr crossroads, which was a municipal cafe at that time, by the street, I left my exhibition by the street
It was very interesting to me that a student passes through there, all classes pass through there
These works were not waterfall paintings and these were not to say, for example, how beautiful they are, but it was interesting for them, but until I explained, they understood.
These led me to an art that relates to people and not just to the intellectual community.
This was very effective because for the sweeper, he understood when I explained
But the gallery owner said to bring it like before, if it was not a question of buying them and not buying them.
It was a discussion of experiences I had to do at that age, and when I see it, ordinary people understand very easily when you explain it to them.
Because the galleries are from the time of the Shah or even now, on the opening night of a series of subscriptions, wherever you go, you see that these have also come.
They don’t have much to do with the works and they start smoking and talking and when you go to the gallery tomorrow, no one
But when it comes to graphics, I always say it’s nude art, it goes on the street, that’s very important.
That exhibition made me put more of my energy on graphics, which is art that deals with everyone.
I keep telling the kids to get a little zealous, but they are looking for comfort.
That is, now if they say that a man has come to take a pill, for example, his graphic intelligence will increase, they will leave the computer and eat the pill.
They are never willing to bother, this generation is not willing to bother
Part 08
The word type came from the 15th century in the West when Mr. Gutenberg came up with the type setting.
They made a change to the letters of the alphabet that would actually harmonize with these typing settings.
Then they typed in these words that we say print letters are moving letters that you can move.
Well, when you write a title with that system, there is an extra space, which is the product of that type setting system that Mr. Gutenberg invented.
Typographers make these distances smaller by hand so that the word can take shape and become more readable.
They came here and did something that was in good shape, but then the legibility was lost
There are books in Iran that you can not read the title of
Well, this is a mistake at all, even if it is very beautiful
Every good or bad graphic you see in the world, you see it is an image companion and letters.
Now these letters are called typographer by someone who does them in Farang
But here it became like a gentleman is a new phenomenon called typography.
You see, for example, ice cream, I do not know what is coming, they say typography, sir, typography
If this is old, it means that in all good or bad graphic works of the world, you see that it is an image and there is a text in the corner.
In terms of communication, when you see an image, you may make one impression and your colleague may make another.
But in order for the task to be clear, there is a written word that, sir, is related to, for example, a biennial, this is a communication work.
Well, some people came, a gentleman named Norson, a man of that name, who came to the West and first of all the westerners say that he is crazy.
He came and did some personal work with letters, he made shifts, that is, he broke all these things.
But the same person kills an Indian poster when he puts it up for Indian cinema
But he exhibited his own interests, which were never reflected in his communication works.
Then a group of young people came to Iran and did the same thing for communication work, that is, they made the letters that are to be read in such a way that you could not read them.
And this was a lesion in Iranian graphics that arose to write the text so that it could not be read.
We are in any case to convey a text message or use print or
Or the use of a line that Farangi calls calligraphy
And he uses typography to call it typography, he uses calligraphy which is a great job and art, he calls it calligraphy, he never calls it typography.
And sometimes you may have the line in the poster or now somewhere else as a note to your friend that does not have a calligraphic look.
Which is called hand lettering or script, we have no other type
There is also a type in which we sit down and draw letters
Suppose the title of the magazine is watching, this is neither typing, nor calligraphy, nor handling
Rather, we designed the word watch, which we usually do for titles or masters.
The designer’s skill is to use which of these to convey this concept
But in all these cases the letters must be read, if they are not read they are actually calligraphy.