Hey Iran! (2019)

Hey Iran! is the work that opens Double Portraits — a long-term artistic project examining power, visibility, and political authorship in the 21st century.

Created in 2019, the painting responds to a specific historical moment: the escalation of rhetoric between the United States and Iran during Donald Trump’s presidency. At that time, public threats, sanctions, and military posturing once again placed Iran at the center of a global spectacle, where words, images, and gestures carried consequences far beyond diplomacy.

Rather than illustrating a single event, Hey Iran! captures a political condition — a moment when warning itself becomes an image.

Visually, the painting operates as a double structure. The visible surface adopts a simplified, emblematic language associated with mass culture, propaganda, and symbolic communication. Beneath this surface lies a second image: a hidden infrared portrait of Donald Trump, detectable only through infrared imaging technology. This concealed layer references the systems of surveillance, targeting, and military optics that underpin contemporary power while remaining invisible to the naked eye.

Infrared here is not used as a technical effect, but as a conceptual tool. It reflects how authority today functions simultaneously in public visibility and operational invisibility — speeches and tweets on the surface, military and technological infrastructures beneath.

Hey Iran! is not offered for sale.

Instead, the painting is designated to become a collective gift to Donald Trump, marking the anniversary of his inauguration. The physical surface of the work — 10,000 square centimeters — is conceptually divided into 10,000 symbolic participations. Each participation corresponds to one square centimeter of the painting and represents inclusion in the gesture itself.

Participants do not acquire ownership, shares, or financial rights. They are not collectors or investors. They become publicly recorded contributors to a political and symbolic act. Blockchain technology is used exclusively as a transparent and permanent public registry, ensuring that participation remains visible, verifiable, and irreversible.

When all participations are completed, Hey Iran! — together with its on-chain record — will be formally gifted, preserving the work not only as an image, but as a collective historical gesture.

In this way, Hey Iran! exists simultaneously as a painting, a political artifact, and a living record of participation — unfolding in real time and inscribed permanently.

Participation in the collective gift is open here:
https://my.culturevault.com/mint/DoublePortraits/heyiran