“Generally speaking, my main subject matter in the works in ‘The World Goes Pop’ are lovers: perhaps the most favourite theme for Persians. Although ‘The Poet and the Beloved King (Lovers), 1966’ was made eight years before the screenprints, they all share the same stories. The imagery of the lovers mostly appears in Persian miniatures. I deliberately wanted to shake up the Iranians and get them out of their millennia-old shells. In order to do so, I picked up ordinary material and commercial paint to break down the soft lines of the Persian miniatures and those pretty faces. My lovers in new mediums with geometric lines are completely the opposite of the Persian refined taste.”

Parviz Tanavoli, interviewed in 2015 by Tate