Khosrow Hassanzadeh

Khosrow Hassanzadeh (born 1963 in Tehran) is an Iranian painter. He is known for his "Terrorist" collection.
Hassanzadeh was born in 1963 in Tehran, to a working class Azerbaijani family and currently lives and works in Tehran, where he works as an actor and visual artist. His work featured in many exhibitions in Europe and the Middle East. Hassanzadeh works primarily with painting, silkscreen and mixed media. His works often deal with issues that are considered sensitive in Iranian society and therefore he is frequently referred to as a 'political' artist. Hassanzadeh first gained international recognition with War (1998), a grim and trenchant diary of his own experiences as a volunteer soldier during the Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988). In Ashura (2000) a 'women-friendly' interpretation of the most revered Shiite religious ceremony, he depicted chador-clad women engulfed by religious iconography. Chador (2001) and Prostitutes (2002) continued his exploration of sociological themes particular to Iran's hyper-gendered urban landscape. The latter paintings used police mug shots to pay tribute to sixteen prostitutes killed by a serial killer in Mashhad, a religious capital of Iran. The paintings were created after filmmaker Maziar Bahari commissioned Hassanzadeh to create a poster for his film, And Along Came a Spider. In Terrorist (2004) the artist questions the concept of 'terrorism' in international politics by portraying himself, his mother and sisters as 'terrorists'.
He studied painting at Mojtama-e-Honar University (1989–91) and Persian Literature at Azad University (1995–99), both in Tehran. Khosrow Hassanzadeh has had solo shows in Amsterdam, Beirut, Dubai, London, Phnom Penh, and Tehran. His work is held by the British Museum, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, the World Bank and the Tropenmuseum.

• Shatanawi, Mirjam, Tehran Studio Works. The Art of Khosrow Hassanzadeh. London: Saqi Books, 2007.
• Shatanawi, Mirjam, 'The disquieting art of Khosrow Hassanzadeh', in: ISIM Review 18, Autumn 2006, pp. 54–55.