Massoud Hayoun LOS ANGELES, USA, b. 1987
Giddy-up, American Ozymandias, 2025
Acrylic on canvas
60 x 48 in
152.4 x 121.9 cm
152.4 x 121.9 cm
Copyright The Artist
Drawing on the Percy Bysshe Shelley sonnet of 1817 which describes the folly of the tyrannical figure of Ozymandias, Hayoun’s painting exposes the false idols of contemporary America. A cowboy...
Drawing on the Percy Bysshe Shelley sonnet of 1817 which describes the folly of the tyrannical figure of Ozymandias, Hayoun’s painting exposes the false idols of contemporary America.
A cowboy on horseback positions himself as the central figure in this painting, only to have his path blocked by Hayoun’s alter ego, solemnly refusing the symbols of American capitalism; a broken iphone and a cheap McDonalds meal. Towering on either side of the path are dense forests populated with the artist's ancestors in the form of whirling dervishes, performing a ritual exorcism called the Rebabeya. Hayoun sits among these inverted women playing the rebab and in solidarity with all the oppressed and possessed with a force that cannot be contained.
A cowboy on horseback positions himself as the central figure in this painting, only to have his path blocked by Hayoun’s alter ego, solemnly refusing the symbols of American capitalism; a broken iphone and a cheap McDonalds meal. Towering on either side of the path are dense forests populated with the artist's ancestors in the form of whirling dervishes, performing a ritual exorcism called the Rebabeya. Hayoun sits among these inverted women playing the rebab and in solidarity with all the oppressed and possessed with a force that cannot be contained.