Hamid Pazooki (Iranian, b. 1955)

"La Vida", 1988, Etching, 25 x 16 / ...

"La Vida", 1988, Etching, 25 x 16 / 35 x 27 cm, Hand-signed in English and Persian, titled and dated.

Born in Iran in 1955, Abdolhamid Pazooki began his artistic career primarily inspired by the creativity of the 70’s. The art sphere of the 70’s was characterized by a desire to evolve and reinforce itself, as a response to the many conflicts of the previous decade. One of the most central movement of the 1970s was Conceptualism, which emerged as an offshoot of Minimalism, while the experimental, creative journey of Process art materialized by combining essential elements of Conceptualism with further considerations on art itself. The earliest ideas of environmentalism bounced from Land Art, which took art into earth itself, carving the land and bringing art to the outdoors. For the first time since the regression of Abstract Expressionism, Expressive figure painting slowly re-emerged and regained its prominence, especially in Germany through the works of critically acclaimed figures Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer and Georg Baselitz. The city of New York remained as the most prominent artistic hub of the decade, with international artists wandering through the downtown scene, visiting bars and art galleries, consolidating the idea of New York City as a cosmopolitan and sophisticated cultural capital. Most of the leading artistic figures of the 1960s remained greatly influential and admired throughout the 1970s.