BAHMAN MOHASSES Iran 1931 - Rome 2010 Untitled, 1981 Oil on canvas, 70.2 x 50 cm Signed and dated lower left; signed and dated on the back Authentication on photograph by Bahman Mohasses Estate Bahman Mohasses sees in the Minotaur a key figure for exploring his own idea of the "different" and the marginalised: not so much a tragic hero as a metaphor for a monstrous figure walking on the edge of civilisation. This mythical 'monster' thus becomes for Mohasses an alter ego full of contradictions: on the one hand it represents the primordial, instinctual force, on the other the alienation of those who feel imprisoned in a hostile environment. Thus, in reflecting on the figure of the Minotaur, Mohasses lays bare his own condition of alienation: a being who belongs neither fully to the ancient world of archetypes nor to the bourgeois modernity in which he moves. The result is an image that remains suspended between memory and desire, between personal pain and ancestral strength. It is in this inexhaustible tension that Mohasses' sculpture and drawing find their power, inviting the viewer to confront the enigma of what makes us both human and, at the same time, 'monsters'.