Behrang Samadzadegan Iranian , b. 1979

Behrang Samadzadegan (b 1979 Tehran, Iran) learned the basics of art at a very young age. He received his BFA from the Tehran University of Arts and his MFA from Tehran Tarbiat Modares University. In 2008 he received the Golden Feather from the first International Media Art Forum for Youth in Cairo. In 2009 he received the Visiting Arts artist residency award in Spike Island, Bristol, United Kingdom. In 2012 he was awarded an artist residency from the Atelierhaus Salzamt Linz, Austria. He was also the recipient of the artist residency of the Cleveland Foundation Creative Fusion Artists Program, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

Since 2004 he has been giving lectures on art theory and holding workshops at the Sooreh University, Tehran University of Art, Aria Art Institute, and Mahe Mehr Cultural Art Institute. As a visiting artist, he taught at the Cleveland Institute of Art for a semester in 2015. He has been a jury member of the fourth Damonfar Biennial for Painting, the New Generation Annual for Painting, the Video Artist Festival of Isfahan, the Persbook Annual of Contemporary Arts, the Vista Prize, Versus Biennial, and the Mohsen Projects Open Call. In 2022 he curated the exhibition titled “Minimalism and Conceptual art in the mid-20th century” at the Tehran Museum Of Contemporary Art (Tehran MOCA).

In his works, Behrang seeks to probe the possibility (or impossibility) of representing truth, identity, and history within the framework of aesthetic laws and to challenge the capacity of the image for displaying these concepts. As a scholar and curator, he enjoys discovering and studying new artistic phenomena and believes in rethinking and challenging the established rules and requirements of art. Painting has been Samadzadegan’s main focus. The subject matters of his works are drawn from images and narratives of contemporary Iranian history, which he combines with fictional stories and the aesthetics of painting. His goal, however, is not to represent historical narratives. The image of history, he believes, is a personal matter created under the influence of visual and aesthetic stereotypes, a combination of confusion, chaos, and a futile quest for reaching unattainable truth.