The Oldman and the Tea 1984

Editor: This is "The Oldman and the Tea," a painting by Morteza Katouzian from 1984, made with oil paint. There's a quiet intimacy to it. What catches your eye when you look at it? Curator: I am drawn to the way the artist utilizes light and shadow to construct the figure and object; not simply for pictorial representation but how the paint itself, the very materiality of it, is worked to represent working class life in 1980s Iran. Do you notice how the oil paint creates this incredible contrast? Editor: I see what you mean about the working class and how it is materially represented in the way the paint itself works… I see how that also ties into that theme of "genre-painting" – focusing on those every day tasks… Curator: Precisely. And considering that this work was created in 1984, against the backdrop of a nation undergoing intense ideological shifts during and immediately after the Revolution, consider the social context surrounding materials. Access to high-quality art supplies for average artist will also become a huge barrier... So, how is that struggle for material presented here? Editor: Perhaps in the darkness… like that sense of lacking and maybe… that limited colour palette – and those darker tones… How might those materials impact how it might be received today versus when it was made? Curator: Great point. Nowadays, a piece like this invites us to reconsider art’s relationship with labour, class, and cultural identity but also the access to material to produce that image or make such images as valuable to view and discuss today. The material making becomes as valuable as the artwork to begin with. Editor: That’s such a fascinating angle. I hadn’t considered how the political backdrop and materiality shape both the making and the reception of a work. Curator: It encourages us to move beyond mere aesthetic appreciation and interrogate the systems that govern artistic creation and consumption. Hopefully that’s useful.