During this time Alivandi was one of Iran's leading modernists, but he left Iran several years after the Islamic revolution of 1979 to escape the repression and censorisation of all free artistic expression. Alivandi joined the National Council of Resistance of Iran in 1994 and was a member of the Council until his death on May 12, 2012. He lived and worked in Vienna from 1983 to 2012.