Episode 2257 | "Bahman Mohassess: The Beauty of Ugliness and Art as Expression of Emotion"

[Music] Welcome to another episode of Exploring Art Podcast, a Florida International University student podcast for Creative Careers. I'm your host, Maddie. I'm very pleased to have Alex and Diego. Welcome to Exploring Art Podcast. [Music] The artwork and the artist, Ba Man Mojazis was one of Iran's most provocative, modern artists, a painter, sculptor, printmaker, and cultural rebel, known as the irreverent artists. Mojazis creative works filled with distorted human figures, ambiguous creatures and uncanny hybrids that resist conventional beauty. At times he destroyed his own work and many public sculptures he made in Iran were later destroyed or damaged after the revolution. A testament to how unsettling his vision often was. His figures are twisted grotesque, embodied in ambiguous forms, often decontextualized at once human and other. This work pushes viewers beyond a comfortable aesthetic into a space of reflection, discomfort, and confrontation. So I want to ask you guys, Alex and Diego, what art piece is your favorite, which is you into those spaces? I mean, I can go first. I was looking through his art and my favorite painting of his was an untitled work which I want to say a lot of his work is untitled, probably because he was either destroyed by himself or during the Iranian war. My favorite painting of his was this painting of an owl. The owl was looking at you. It has like no pupils. It's staring at you. He was very like alone and isolated. And it's just very intriguing to me. Just looking at it just makes me like wonder like how to get there. Why is it looking at me like that? Like what is its intentions? What is it seen? Because it seems like it's seen a lot. It just very, it intrigues me a lot. Yeah, maybe that says a lot about the artist too. How about you Diego? After looking through his catalog, I think the one that called out the most to me was the Minotaur Morente he did, which by the way means dying Minotaur. Because I feel like it took inspiration from like Greek mythology and all that, which by the way, I am a huge fan of. And then looking through his background, I also saw he was trained in Rome, which would make a lot of sense to me. I like this artwork a lot because other than relating to the mint, it is also a very interesting artwork in itself, because it's not your typical painting of the Minotaur, you know? It's not your big bulky bowl with like the human legs. Instead it's just like ugly greenish, greenish, grayish body that's kind of like collapsing on itself. And with Mark's on it, that generally looked like wounds. And while some may think that it sounds ugly, I don't think ugly is really the right word for what's happening there. What do you think about it, my? I actually love that you brought up the Minotaur. Because I love Greek mythology too. And I wanted to talk about more the Minotaur, the Myth History and the Meaning. If you guys want me to tell you a story. I love Greek mythology. Let's go ahead. Okay, I hope the listeners invite us too. So over 2000 years ago, the ancient Greeks told the story of the Minotaur, a creature with the head of a bowl, the body of a man. According to the myth, the Minotaur was born on the island of Crete and was imprisoned in a giant maze called the Labrins. King Minos kept the creature hidden at the center of the maze. The hero, Thesius, eventually entered the Labrins, killed the Minotaur and escaped with the help of a ball of thread given to him by the King's daughter. For Bobman, Mojazis, the Minotaur was more than a mythological monster. It symbolized the outsider, caught between human and animal, a powered and vulnerability, vulnerability. By repeatedly painting the Minotaur, Mojazis explored themes of alienation, identity, and the struggles of modern lives. But you guys think about that, more of the inspiration that he had for his paintings. Why do you think that he was painting with like, he's of isolation and like, Labrins of trapping, probably because like, you know, he was, you know, really tough time in his life and just in like, his own community was in war. Like, he just probably felt isolated and just trapped by one else and just feeling like running around my Labrins. Yeah, I agree. I agree with that. I also think that the themes of isolation could also be due to the fact that while not mentioned a lot, he was openly gay at a time in which that could actually get you killed in Iran. You cannot stand the way the regime treated him. And that might just be a part of why he, all most of his artworks actually are based around this, this theme of like, isolation and loneliness and all that. Yeah, I think the fact that he was in the middle of a war definitely was maybe one of the main motivations for his artwork. I think something really cool that I wanted to bring up to you guys is the fact, as we talked about before, why he destroyed his paintings. And what I found when I was researching was that he would destroy his paintings to become closer to that feeling of violence, that natural feeling of violence. So he would create and destroy, which is something he probably saw in his daily lives. Really interesting. Do you guys think anything about the war like that? If you like the creating and destroying car, like some people do see that as like ugly. They don't like looking at that type of stuff of just grotesque figures of like paintings of isolation, suffering, powerlessness. People don't like looking at that. So they in my mind, like, they don't think it's beautiful. There's no meaning behind it. It's just violence. But like beauty doesn't have to be pretty. It's not the like beauty isn't the only goal of art like, uglyness is the whole meaning of it. Like the whole point of the art is to be ugly. If he's going what he's going through goes, they all believe into his art. Like it makes people lacked. And like when they see his art, they wonder like, what they wonder what he was going through and they see his struggles in his life. Yeah. Maybe that's the beauty of it. The beauty isn't maybe what is actually in the painting. Well, it is. But the beauty is that he can translate his emotions and his experience to us who have never been in his experience. I find it interesting that the war wasn't experienced that marked him so much that he would destroy something that he put part of himself in. It's clear he wasn't interested into the whole legacy thing. But I mean, either way, his actions had the opposite reaction. Now that his paintings are super rare, super expensive and kind of mythologized themselves at this point. But I still find it very interesting that he had the courage to destroy his life's work just like that. Yeah. And it ended up honestly being in his favor because now they're even more expensive, although hell never. He's a benefit. Yeah. Yeah, he's never going to see a book of that. Oh my gosh. I would be so mad if I was and I'd be rolling in my brief. But he probably honestly doesn't even care. He's going to be the one of you. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, whether he meant it or not, he kind of left his mark, you know, against the war all that by destroying more than half of his paintings. I think that sends a message about his opinions regarding the war. And the angry. It's kind of like performance art in a way. Yeah. In some way. Yeah. Because like, you know, I mean, his whole life was a violent. So he violently destroyed his own art. It's true. And I think that he's more of a modern artist and he makes styles. I think that kind of the distortion you see in his paintings are kind of like the point of what he was going to. Like, for example, again, bringing up the Minotaur because I like that. Someone's obsessed. Yeah, just like he was with painting that guy. He painted him over and over again. Yeah. But I feel like if it was like a beautiful, perfect painting anatomically flawless, you get nothing out of it. You just get like your classical monster of the storybook. I think it's precisely because the body is wrong. That you start feeling something real, you know, the distortion is what kind of. makes it human. So I wouldn't call it ugly to be honest. I don't know what do you think Alex? Well, just like you were talking about, it's not it's not perfect because humans aren't perfect. Like the whole human condition is the like the ability to not be perfect. The distorted like figures show like honesty like just pure like emotion towards humans and like how they feel. I was actually going to ask you guys, how do you think that he would communicate his emotions through maybe the disfigurement of his paintings and artwork? How would he translate what he feels to us? I believe that could be for multiple reasons. Maybe it was like a look into himself that he didn't like what he saw or maybe it was towards the his community at the time which was a war. Maybe he used his art as a medium for his criticism towards it and in the end it is what ended up pushing him to destroy most of his artwork. So yeah, I mean he did live through a time war and revolution must. Honestly, it's probably both the things you're saying. He's probably struggling with himself and like his own community as well. It's probably a mix of both because he's just it's just like existentialism. He's searching for meaning in like a truly like a really hard time in his life and in his community and the meaning comes into his art. Yeah. What emotion do you think he felt the most after looking at his art? For me, 100% isolation. Like all of his art is just like to me either just like one statue or one animal just like a round age or like void or like even not void but like purposely like negative like not like places but more like thoughts or when like implied I don't know how to say like implied negativity. Yeah. I so the listeners can't see the artwork and also they're not titled but I'm going to paint a picture for them. So I'm looking at a painting and this can involve many of his paintings but just imagine of more of a blank background and a figure in the middle just hugging itself kind of cold and the the colors aren't very like nice. They're not very pastel. They're more like dirty. So I think that does show a lot of what we're talking about here. The isolation. I didn't even think about that. I was going to say anger and sadness by isolation honestly. I feel like but it's not really like anger because like these paintings I feel like I don't see anger for them. I just see like just suffering like and like it's like a struggle for identity. Like he wants identity and through these paintings he's finding his identity like his identity is the suffering. Yeah and I think maybe he would express himself through anger but I think at the core of it you're right. Yeah were you going to say anything? Yeah you know mostly I believe that his objective more than portraying his own feelings onto the paper. I think he was looking just to paint something that would unsettle the people looking at it. Something that wouldn't make them comfortable as to display the reality of the world itself at the time period he was living it and like I don't think he meant to draw a comfortable art that people would just be happy looking at. I think he meant to draw a comfortable art that displays reality itself which is not always pretty. Yeah I mean his whole way he must have felt so isolated. I mean Digg already mentioned that he was he was gay. I mean in a place where he was that's like there must be so isolated knowing that everyone around you thinks you're just a terrible person for just being who you are and as well as the war. I mean he also openly rejected like political and social conventions. He never made himself follow these normal traditions and will constantly do his own thing and that must feel so isolating knowing that you're the only one doing this stuff, feeling on rejecting like society and your culture around you and not only you rejecting the culture the culture is rejecting itself it's fighting each other and it just if you're very powerful like you just have no power just completely powerless. And even in the fact that his artwork didn't become popular until he died he he still had that isolation until even after like people only now recognize him. Yeah in fact most of the sources I looked up like for example when Resa Mirzae wrote a paper called Equestrian Semiosis unpacking the periodic layers of bomb mojasis painting in theater it just came out in 2025 in fact which is last year and other than that I couldn't find many people talking about him until very very very recently which I guess it kind of shows how his own people looked at it. If people are interested in to look in at it there's also this piece called Tomohasses for the wall also in Star margins from 2021 that is basically a translated letter written in Tomohasses by Jalal Aleman who was this major Iranian intellectual so that that's less hears and analysis of his work and it's more like hears what a contemporary actually thought of the guy. Yeah. Which I think I'm providing an interesting look into what people actually thought of him at the time. That's a good point. Most people around him probably did not like his work. I mean which again probably out to the isolationism. I mean it just takes a hindsight view at his work to see what he was going through and how that actually does truly reflect what he was going through. I mean being kind of blunt and honest if I was just the random person coming around especially at that time here and I found one of his art pieces in the museum I don't know if I could really appreciate the value behind it because I feel like the story and the context behind it is what brings a lot of life to his paintings. What you want? You wouldn't feel the same as him like sad about the situation he was living in. Well at the time they were also living through it. Yeah. I'm not sure I think culture affects the way you look at things you know. We're taking a we're taking an art appreciation class but I've reached people at the time and we just go at it and be like hmm that looks like a kind of ugly owl. It makes it uncomfortable. Hey that's his favorite artwork. Yeah that's I mean I guess but that's the point you know it's like it's supposed to make you uncomfortable. It's supposed to like it's supposed to comfort someone who's uncomfortable and make someone who's comfortable uncomfortable. Yeah I guess that really goes into a big question is can something unsettling or ugly still be meaningful in art? I mean if you want to go into this together. No I'm going ahead of you. Go ahead. Well I mean of course like ugliness has its own meeting like just because it's ugly like I think I already said this but like art doesn't need to be beautiful to have a goal like people when you when you look at ugly art you're supposed to take something from it you're supposed to take something from any art if you look at the last supper you're supposed to take something from it when you look at these paintings you're supposed to take his distorted view and like wonder why is he thinking so distorted? Why is he thinking like this and then that brings into his past what he was going through and all that and it's just feeling discomfort is the point of his art and I to be honest I would actually do like that a lot. I don't know it's just like him not being scared to make his audience uncomfortable is very admirable for me. That's beautiful honestly it's beautiful to be able to feel the emotions in general they don't have to be happy ones. Yeah I actually think that these kind of paintings that show more of like an ugly, unseemly kind of thing point more towards truth than what beauty does and it makes it feel more alive than what perfect artworks do like I feel like some of his paintings feel even more alive than like perfect marbles statues that are just looking at the world. Yeah especially like if things are too perfect they're on they're not lifelike they're more like a doll sitting on a shelf so this raw emotion that we're feeling it's definitely more human and to a point I think someone who might be feeling the same feelings They're probably not in a war, you know, thinking more modern time. Maybe they just feel I I don't think they might. They might be in a war. But maybe they feel comforted, like knowing throughout history, like this emotion is normal and they're seen through it. - Yeah, great. That's a pretty good point. - I mean, speaking of statues, I can just say, I mean, he did statues, I think. I saw some statues of him. - Oh, yeah, yeah. I have like a pool. - And like, I mean, yeah, I mean, if every statue was all was perfect, then I feel like that's not honest. Like, humans aren't perfect. And just like every statue you see, like those Greek, those Greek beautiful statues that are like, like, we chiseled and they're like, - No, they're like, they're like, like, they're all like doing some really cool thing or something. - And like the perfect human form. - Like, eventually that would get boring. - Oh, yeah, for sure. - Maybe just a little bit more of those. - I would argue, I'm gonna sprinkle a little bit of nerdiness in here. - Nerd. - I would argue that it's kind of like the same thing. For example, you go and ask people like, oh, who's your favorite superhero here? Nobody ever says Superman because everybody's like, oh, he's too perfect. He's too strong. He's too pretty. - But I was him for Halloween, chill. - I was him for Halloween. - Oh, actually. - You were him for Halloween, okay. Well, I clearly didn't console my sources properly, but at least most of the people I've talked to beforehand, they do agree that they don't want like a perfect, unhuman kind of, they don't like those kind of things. - Right, right. - They like things that feel closer to them, feel more real. And I think that's part of his artwork. - Yeah, so really is that's the beauty of his artwork is the raw emotion that we see. - I would have. - Find the beauty even in what seems ugly. - Yeah, you make a good point Diego. I want to thank you guys so much for joining us today. I like to be able. I really appreciate it. This can include the Exploring Art Podcast. So subscribe on iTunes Spotify SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening. Please join us soon and remember to stay curious. - Bye guys. - Bye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)