Takhti: a modern Iranian hero - transcript

[Venetia Porter] This is a work called Takhti, by Khosrow Hassanzadeh, who is one of Iran’s most prominent artists, who lives most of the time in Iran. And the wonderful thing about his work is how he’s able to combine Iranian tradition and history and put it in a very very modern idiom. 

This work features this very important wrestler, called Takhti. Who is regarded as a world hero and in Persian it’s Jahan Pahlevan. 
And he is, in a sense, a national icon. He is not only a wrestler, but he embodied all sorts of qualities, kindness and gentleness, that Iranians admire today. Takhti was an Olympic medallist, he won medals at Helsinki in ‘52 and then a gold medal in Melbourne in ‘56.

What Khosrow Hassanzadeh has done in this work, is that he has placed Takhti, this Iranian national hero, this Jahan Pahlevan, 
within a setting which is like a shrine. And what this echoes are these temporary shrines which you find in Iran, they’re called Hejleh, they are put up to commemorate the person who’s died. And so he’s put him within that context, with these little gently flashing lights, and he’s surrounded him with objects which not only relate to wrestling so we see his medals, we see a replica of the cup. All sorts of things like the trousers that these wrestlers wear. And an arm band, very, very important the arm band which is called a Bazuband.

And he’s also put all sorts of other objects around Takhti which relate completely to Iranian Shi’a tradition and religion. 
So we have images of Imam ‘Ali, we have prayers to Imam ‘Ali, we have Imam ‘Ali’s split sword, the Zulfaqar. And many other objects of this kind, which relate very very strongly to Iranian tradition.

[Khosrow Hassanzadeh] His character is very humble.That’s why the light is very humble.

[Venetia] Takhti as a young man, at the age of about 15, started to go to the Zurkhaneh. 
Zurkhaneh literally translates as House of Strength. And it’s where, for generations, people have been going to do these body-building exercises and where they also used to practise wrestling. 
And so he learnt all of these types of exercises. And there’s very important ritual attached to these exercises. 
So traditionally they’ve always wielded these kinds of clubs or chains. And also as part of the exercises they use these big boards which are called Sang, and these actually represent the doors that Imam ‘Ali, when he broke down the fortress at Khaybar, these actually represent the doors that he broke down. What’s so interesting as far as the Zurkhaneh and all these exercises is that they are completely embedded in Shi’a tradition and history. 

This work was acquired in 2007. It fits very much with our policy of collecting the work of contemporary artists from the Middle East. We have a growing collection of such material, but what is particularly exciting about this piece, 
is how it’s a modern work, but everything about it links to Iranian history and tradition. 
And so it is very much a British Museum object.