The Crisis of Belonging: On the Politics of Art Practice in Contemporary Iran

Hamid Keshmirshekan is a research associate at the London Middle East Institute (SOAS). Before this he was a Barakat Trust Fellow at Oxford University, where he taught at the Khalili Research Centre for Art and Material Culture of the Middle East and History of Art Department for eight years. He is a leading authority on the contemporary art of Iran.

Contemporary Art from the Middle East:

Regional Interactions with Global Art Discourses

EDITED BYHAMID KESHMIRSHEKAN

First published in 2015 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltdwww.ibtauris.com

Distributed worldwide by I.B.Tauris & Co LtdRegistered office: 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU

Copyright Editorial Selection and Introduction © 2015 Hamid Keshmirshekan

The right of Hamid Keshmirshekan to be identified as the editor of this work has been asserted byhim in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Copyright Individual Chapters © 2015 James Allan, Hamid Dabashi, Fereshteh Daftari, Abbas Daneshvari, Helia Darabi, Hamid Keshmirshekan, Shaheen Merali, Venetia Porter, Sarah Rogers, Irit Rogoff, Hamid Severi and Nada Shabout.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, maynot be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any formor by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without theprior written permission of the publisher.

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International Library of Modern and Contemporary Art 18

ISBN: 978 1 78453 002 0eISBN: 978 0 85773 846 2

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the Crisis of belonging: on the Politics of Art Practice in Contemporary Iran

HAMID KESHMIRSHEKAN

The issue of ‘belonging’, which is related to localised historical and cultural landscapes, fuels a complex debate in Iranian art today, and perhaps more generally in the

Middle East. I will argue here that the lack of critical discourse regarding this issue has left individual artists to pursue their own solutions to the question and to generate artistic strategies that are relevant to the demands of contemporaneity – a concept that itself remains undertheorised. I will then explore the strategies pursued by artists in the Iranian context, and the wider politics of art practice relating to these fundamental yet unresolved questions.

Rather than offering a broad summary, I will examine this concern through the works of a number of artists, situating

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Contemporary Art from the Middle East

them with reference to the concepts of identity, ethnicity and transnational contemporaneity. With reference to selected works, I will also consider how artists enact a politics of resistance to explicit ethno-cultural identity markers – that is, to essentialised cultural views that often reduce their works to geopolitical concepts. Using contemporary discourses on globalised art, their art practice aims to revisit a well-established debate within art-historical discourse: namely, whether art should have creative autonomy, or whether it is only ever determined by its context. As will become clear, for some artists, artistic practice is an intellectual and activist project that serves as a fitting site for the possibility of a responsible and sociopolitical art.1 In the second part, through five case studies of artists’ works, I will examine how artists act against the erasure of contextual frames, demonstrating an awareness of the fact that contemporary art is capable of transcending the politics of location. I will discuss the current dilemma of how contemporary Iranian artists have responded to Iran’s social and cultural complexities.

Contemporary Iranian art, in the process of adaptation to and appropriation of the Euro-American artistic paradigms, has incorporated elements of so-called global contemporary art while seeking to create and reflect the phenomena of its own contemporaneity.2 This alternative context of contemporaneity is obviously a response to canonical discourses, and ideally aims, in turn, to inscribe new discursive formations in the contemporary era. Unsurprisingly, issues concerning the politics of identity have taken centre stage within this emerging context, and have thus shaped and influenced artistic practice.

A familiar debate within this arena concerns whether it is possible to articulate specific cultural issues (usually denoted by the cultural past) while addressing contemporaneous issues related to the wider and broader global field. This reveals deep-rooted anxieties that relate to the issue of cultural belonging and identity, and their possible affinity with international concerns, and poses the important

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question: Is it possible to open up an art practice and discourse that are contemporary and global, while also being indigenous and specific?

It might first be useful to consider the origin of some of these practices that have sought to engage with the global arena.

As I have argued elsewhere, by the end of the 1990s a number of young artists, in rather a short time, increasingly began to make use of new and unprecedented means of media. At the same time, artworks appeared that were in line with contemporary art processes incorporating new viewpoints that reflected existing circumstances in Iran. As with contemporaneity, the impetus for this came partly from the international arena and partly from domestic conditions, where the need to record reality in a transitional era in all its shifting forms had become more urgent. The emergence of newer media and various contemporary approaches arguably enabled a more sustained critical and direct social address than was possible with earlier forms of Iranian modernism.3 This new trend was established first in the early 2000s, when it found support in official institutions – in particular the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA).4

A common thread uniting these artists was a yearning to be in the here-and-now: to incorporate into the experiences of globalised internationalism in a simultaneous and concrete practice. The postscript for the contemporary artist was now defined by their need to be in the ‘contemporary’, rather than to produce a belated or anachronistic response to the everyday. Inevitably, then, this drive to comply with global value systems would entail an understanding of global discourses on art. There seemed to be an insatiable demand to reveal what might be defined as ethno-cultural identity markers, often encapsulated by specific, essentialised symbols: subjects such as cultural heritage, tradition, and gendered experience, which would also comply with typical definitions of cultural authenticity.5 This insatiable demand would in return affect choices of subject matter and imagery. This often leads to the prohibition of cultural aspirations or forms of address when artwork is exhibited. The impulse to suppress

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cultural statements or gestures within the exhibiting establishment is a response to the presumed demands of the cosmopolitan art world, rather than to domestic sensibilities. References have been made in Iranian art to the issues from traditional imaginary and cultural frameworks to vivid political and controversial subjects6 (Fig. 7.1). Exploring these themes in art would be a strategy whose parameters are at least clear to win recognition internationally, although not necessarily locally. Thus, this strategy often goes unchallenged by practising artists who wish to be part of this international system. Examples of a nostalgic aesthetic approach towards local and national imaginaries are not hard to find (Fig. 7.2).

Here one should beware of the issue of the essentially dissimilar reception and reading of these artistic strategies which aim to reconcile cultural specificities with international demands at home to the international scene. Artworks that are praised by the world exhibition centres as strongly representative of the cultural mood of the country are fiercely criticised at home, as it is said that they aim only to win the approval of ‘the Other’. Despite the fact that these artists are more widely represented in the current surge of interest in contemporary Iranian art – and are indeed associated with such trend-setting schemes – there is open criticism of this situation at home, where it is argued that their position is based on ‘stereotyping’ of these trends.7

Gohar Dashti, from the Me, She and the Others series, 2009, C Print, courtesy of the artist.Fig. 7.1

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The tensions between the two opposing movements – representing the claims of cultural homogenisation on one hand, and of cultural heterogenisation on the other – are clearly reflected in the products developed by artists: global forms, aesthetics, functions and concepts versus local values and desires. But art cannot be seen simply as a linear story in which a local art is introduced onto a global platform. The questions that result from this are: How do local languages adopt to a globalised art discourse? How does hegemonic language of art discourse affect an artist for whom it is not his or her mother tongue?8 Intellectual and artistic strategies are central to the challenge of dealing with this hegemonic structure.

The issue of cultural otherness has also been framed by the Iranian state, although making use of different ideological resources from what the international almost unanimous value systems would propose. The question of a return to a glorified past and political stance against modernity, which gathered momentum in the 1979 Revolution, is still strongly present in the cultural policy of the state. The use of various materials and themes from native sources to


Arman Stepanian, from the New Art series, 2008, C Print, 100 × 70 cm, courtesy of the artist..

Fig. 7.2

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construct ‘independent’ or ‘authentic’ works, supporting the idea of cultural specificity and indigenous expression in artwork, has been partly the result of this formulation.9 The materialisation of this idea can be seen in the works of artists who are still influenced by such debates as that concerning the creation of a unique artistic identity within the cultural domain of the country, aired in particular during the 1960s. This decade had already seen the influential role played on the art scene by the so-called neo-traditionalist Saqqa-khaneh movement.10 The artists affiliated with this movement attempted to reconcile the cultural heritage of the past with the language of modern art (Figs 7.3 and 7.4). The use of ancient, traditional or national materials in order for their work to be identified specifically as ‘Iranian’ was partly the result of nativist and nationalist beliefs that had been variously presented throughout the recent history of Iranian art. The artists appropriated Western canon and discourses, but looked for inspiration in native popular culture. The result was a new form of art inspired by contemporary trends in the West while at the same time questioning Eurocentric hegemony, as well as incorporating elements from local cultures in order to promote more polycentric and alternative aesthetics. These artisits sought to situate their practice in the broader intellectual context of their era, and devoted considerable effort to building new institutional frameworks of exhibition, patronage and reception for modern art. Interestingly, in addition to the wide domestic realisation that they received, their works were also successful in gaining international recognition at the time, as it was taken to constitute the perfect way of representing Iranian, or more broadly Middle Eastern, art.

The cultural administrative bodies of the Islamic Republic have attempted to formulate a definition of an ‘authentic’ identity based on an essential idea to present itself as a homogeneous entity. This over-centralised, anticompetitive and ideological idea suggests that this identity is an integral component of Iranian cultural essence and materiality. However, as the philosopher and social scientist Ramin Jahanbegloo maintains, the very notion of ‘ideology’ has

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Parviz Tanavoli, Prophet, 1962, Bronze, 97 × 40 × 20 cm, Coll. Walker Art Center Minneapolis, courtesy of the artist.

Fig. 7.3

Massoud Arabshahi, Untitled, 1964, oil on canvas, 110 × 70 cm, courtesy of the artist.

Fig. 7.4

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gradually lost much of its coherence in recent years among the new generation of Iranian intellectuals and art activists, and this situation has accompanied the crisis of political legitimacy in Iran.11 Thus, for the majority of the artists of the new generation, the government-approved formulation of culture no longer seems plausible. This has led to an artistic and intellectual reaction against stereotypical ways of thinking that impose a monolithic formula. According to Jahanbegloo, ‘today, a democratic notion of identity, emphasizing the formation of a pluralistic civil society in Iran, is more welcomed among the new generation of Iranian elites than romantic or traditionalist notions of Iranian identity.’12 In many instances, however, the absence of a sustained tradition of art criticism has also meant that artists have had to establish their visual strategies without an appropriate ground, such as strong local discourses on art.

During recent years the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has set up regular formal art events, including national biennials (not perhaps held very regularly) and the annual Janshnvareh-i biynulmilali-i hunrhay-i tajassumi-i fajr (‘The Fadjr International Festival of Visual Arts’),13 as well as art expos all from within the state’s rarefied ideological ghetto and politics of culture.14 Currently the administration’s ideological view of culture obviously frowns on any kind of critical or ‘cutting edge’ art practices.15 Various restrictions are also applied to some kinds of work – photography in particular – that are seen as misleading cultural products acting against national religious values or the political system, according to the defined formula of cultural and ideological essentialism. An equivalent approach is adopted in relation to all cultural products, including art publications operated under the heading of ‘regulation’. Any message critical of the state’s ideological system would not be allowed, and would be condemned by the system, which essentially believes in directing and guiding the national culture towards the ‘right manner’ (the main connotation of the word ‘Guidance’ in the very name of the ministry). There has been practically no effort to promote Iranian art internationally through the public sector in

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recent years.16 At best, these events must limit themselves to a small portion of the cultural potential of the country. This excessive lack of inclusivity has turned against the cultural norms of the status quo and has created powerful commercial or alternative sectors.

By the late 2000s the art scene in Iran was growing as a result of private funding bodies. In addition to the state-run events, there are various private art competitions and prizes17 that have attracted a greater number of emerging artists who will not accept restrictions. There are a few websites and art centres18 that aim to build platforms for young artists and facilitate the introduction of contemporary Iranian art onto the international art scene, and hold occasional exhibitions of foreign artists in Iran that promise an alternative to institutional norms.

The past decade has also seen a surge of regional and international interest in the Iranian art market, and as a result a rise in domestic interest. Geopolitics and the state of the economy have been at least partly responsible for this. The recent development of the art market in the Middle East (chiefly in the Persian Gulf countries), in particular Christie’s biennial auctions in Dubai, has also been expressed in art fairs, auction-house sales and exhibitions, all of which has not been without benefits for modern and contemporary Iranian art.19 Here the issue of stereotyping makes itself felt, which is not very different from the perspectives of the world exhibition system or the state’s clichéd definition of authenticity. This might represent a threat for the position of a large group of practising artists, including in particular younger and emerging artists, who are not willing to comply with the market system. In addition, this system would generate stereotypical ways of thinking among arbiters of taste and value by imposing its own standards. This might result, in turn, in an unhealthy homogenisation according to the familiar, clichéd criteria. Many artists have set aside the issues of the pricing of their work, focusing instead on making it with uncompromising rigour. Nevertheless, many, unconsciously or consciously, make work


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for the market. Various kinds of calligraphic trends, explicit social representations are the most fashionable examples among other market-oriented genres (Fig. 7.5).

In order to achieve some degree of originality, artists are usually expected to represent their given identities as safe havens in their

art. This has now developed into a discourse. This dilemma is a major challenge relating not only to the politics of identity, but also to the politics of visuality, which focuses on the way that certain identities become visible. But there is some resistance and dissatisfaction which is often voiced in opposition to ethno-religious categorisation. As the art historian Sussan Babaie argues, ‘the point is to not be label the artist by an ethnic or religious marker but to apply critical tools of art history to locate the work within the intersections of international contemporary art and historical art from the artist’s

Alireza Astaneh, from the Donald series, 2011, iron and industrial colour coated, 190 × 92 cm, courtesy of the artist.Fig. 7.5

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country or region of origin’.20 Accordingly, the resistance on the part of artists is to taking part in such a process – and, in particular, to being categorised according to primary, all-encompassing terms such as ‘Islamic’ and ‘Middle Eastern’. According to the cultural aesthetician Khaled Ramadan,

The strategy of ‘cultural difference’ corresponds almost literally to the problem of the ‘representational’ role of non-Western artists. As for the dominant discourse, it is so obsessed with cultural difference and identity [that] it too is suffering from an intellectual blockage. In addition, the obsession with cultural difference is now being institutionally legitimized through the construction of the ‘post-colonial other’ that is allowed to express itself only as long as it speaks of its own Otherness.21

To avoid any straightforward interpretation or clichéd reading of the work of art by the mentioned stereotyped frame of the world exhibition, the art market and the ideological frameworks of officials domestically, Iranian artists are asked by domestic critics to avoid complying with these expectations. They are encouraged to be more complex in approaching their art, try not to be trapped by those conditioned systems of reading by those readers.

There has thus been an attempt to re-orientate this discourse – a drive to change the terms of the debate and a resistance to ‘categorisation’, rejection of the notion of an art industry itself, and of ideological formulations around their work. The major issue for many artists is that they have never considered what is ‘Islamic’, or even in particular ‘Iranian’, in their artwork – in the sense that these terms function as labels or stereotypes – even though these artists might deal with those issues in their work as a response to their ‘immediate context’. The disapproval of the cliché-ridden idea arises


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mainly when the immediate aim of the artist is to comply with the formulated demands rather than tracing the lived experience and self-expression in any way possible, whether or not those features are indicated. This disapproving idea has been reflected in the works of artists working with the various media now accessible to them. Here it can be seen that the maintenance of the cultural ideals presented in the works of those previous generations has now become challenging, perhaps because these cultural standards and their presentation hold little influence over those who do not identify with them. Works that best reflect this challenge are those being made in the here and now: the contemporary. Such works consider the most pressing personal, social, cultural and political issues of the time, recognising the need to communicate clearly, with an eye to the complexities of contemporary culture (Plates 5 and 6). In these cases, this perspective enables them to resist the temptation of revisiting exotic imagery.22

Their works reflect contradictions and demonstrate critical ideas through autobiographical exposition and elements of everyday life. This criticism goes even further when addressing collective memories, deconstructing tradition, belonging and identity. This persistent concern with challenging norms is sometimes epitomised by humorous commentary on those ideals instead of their commemoration, as was offered by artists of earlier generations (Plate 7). Accordingly, although themes such as tradition, gender and dislocation may appear in the works of contemporary artists, these are embedded within larger concerns about culture and society. These works in effect could recreate the semiotics of the society. Although a large number of artists reject any reference to anything collective, their work adheres to an ironic, and at times humorous, approach to the evident desires of the past. Making use of culturally sacred or symbolic objects, the artists struggle to redefine them through critical discourses. Another familiar strategy is to address the limitations of normative paradigms concerned with social status.

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Having considered some of the more theoretical questions and issues relating to the situation of contemporary Iranian art, I shall now consider some of the artists’ works.

The body as a site of intellectual, physical and psychological expression is a consistent aspect of the work of Amir Mobed (b. 1974). His work incorporates the use of subversion as an artistic strategy – a strategy that can be performed through the body. The artist pursues his objective of challenging norms through the use of various unconventional materials, but in particular in his controversial performance projects. Using his own body, the artist puts himself in the position of a victim of torture; the audience either play an active role in his torture or remain indifferent observers. His shocking performances question social and political violence, both domestic and institutional, as well as human pain, suffering and totalitarianism. His 2011 work, 50% Off, challenged both the artist himself and the audience, as well as the art market. In


Amir Mobed, 50% Off, 2011, performance and installation at the Azad Gallery, courtesy of the artist.Fig. 7.6

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this performance he tied himself to a column to test his powers of endurance, and at the same time had his body parts (moulded and gilded) hung on the walls and auctioned (Fig. 7.6). His performance, Fraud, at the Azad Art Gallery in 2013, revolved around similar issues (Plate 8). Once again, he pushed his body to its physical limits with giving his blood, using it to make a statement about the tensions, pressures, and hypocrisy in culture and politics. Through this ‘re-enactment’ of the hospital scene in a gallery space, and by sprinkling his own blood on a canvas where the already hidden words ‘It Is A Good Price’ (referring to a term in the art market) are revealed, the artist lays bare the level of violence and fraud that have been taken for granted in their normative occurrence.

In a similar vein, Neda Razavipour’s interactive installation, Self-Service (2009),23 actualises violence by signifying the ways in which chaotic violence permeates the whole of society (Fig. 7.7a and b). It also involves the audience in an ethical dilemma: one can contribute to the success of an interactive art installation, but in the process also destroy one’s cultural legacy and heritage. This project returns to a central question identified in this paper – that of the artist’s cultural belonging – and to questions surrounding identity. It is in this light that we can read the subtlety and layered complexity of this artwork, in particular given its siting of social reality in the Iranian context.

The work of Barbad Golshiri (b. 1982) represents a paradoxical circumstance: the simultaneity of symbolic local meanings with metaphors that resonate internationally. His art is critically responsive to Iran’s contemporary political culture, and questions its formal ideological grounds. The use of English is typical in Golshiri’s works. He says that he uses Persian script only when he wants it to be readable – only when he wants his writings to represent both a language and a pictorial signifier. That is why Quod (Fig. 7.8), for example, is only for Persian-speaking audiences. Since reading Quod (slang for ‘prison’) stimulates nausea, this feeling is deeply rooted in the unique experience of reading it, and hence ‘only available

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Barbad Golshiri, Qued, 2010, C Print on paper, 106.2 × 106.5 cm, 1/10, courtesy of the artist.Fig. 7.8

Neda Razavipour, Self-Service, 2009, interaction performance, courtesy of the artist.Fig. 7.7 a, & b

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Barbad Golshiri, The Untitled Tomb 1 & 2, 2012, iron, soot, 60.5 × 135 × 0.2 cm, Edition of 3 + 1 AP, courtesy of

the artist. The stenciled text narrates the labyrinthine death of a man who for political reasons could never have a tombstone on his grave. His family commissioned the artist and he made an ephemeral tombstone for him. Each time the family visits the cemetery, they bring along the stenciled tombstone with them, place it on the grave and stealthily pour soot powder on it. The text is thus imprinted and depending on the wind strength vanishes in a few hours or a few days. The act is repeated as a ritual.

Fig. 7.9 a, & b

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Barbad Golshiri, As Dad As Possible, As Dad As Beckett, 2000 – 2013, iron, ashes, 200.3 × 100.2 × 28.3 cm, courtesy of the artist.

The iron tombstone is a replica of Beckett’s tomb in dimensions. Inside the artist has burnt hundreds of works he has produced during the past 13 years: his writings, paintings, photographs, sculptures, prints, sketches and so forth.

Fig. 7.10 a, & b

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to those who read Persian’.24 Golshiri’s work, when criticising Iranian calligraphic abstract works (very popular commercially), concerns itself with this approach with the use of his visual strategy. While emphasising the availability of the work ‘only to those who read Persian’, he criticises the ambiguity of written materials and contemporary calligraphic works, and suggests that for non-Persian readers these works are purely decorative pieces. Golshir’s most recent series of tombstones, Curriculum Mortis (2013), explores the issue of death, what has been an essential concern throughout his work (Figs. 7.9a and b, and 7.10a and b). Now it is the main theme of his art ‘through which all other aspects are filtered, as physical bodies are replaced with tombstones, turning the gallery into a graveyard’.25 In this sculptural installation, each work has its own title, and the artist addresses each death individually, ‘creating grave markers so closely attuned as to become physical manifestations of the people they commemorate’.26 The artist’s personal history is as deeply intertwined in this work as are the histories of the dead. The graves include those of Samuel Beckett – ‘a stone with the inscription “[There is] no God”; a Tombstone of Jan van Eyck; and finally Golshiri’s own tombstone. Walking through this makeshift graveyard, we are moving through a mindscape of the artist; each grave presents a portal into worlds beyond the present one, where transformation is possible and all can – finally – be different.’27 The simplicity and minimal aesthetics of these works challenge traditional appearances of tombstones that celebrate death and martyrdom, ‘befit[ting] his larger gesture [of outdoing and questioning] authority without making a frontal attack on it’.28

The works of Mahmoud Bakhshi Moakhar (b. 1977) convey an ambiguous presence, hovering between the notion of faith and devotion, on one hand, and official propaganda on the other. Bakhshi has integrated everyday objects from his country into his work – objects that have acquired a political character beyond their banal everyday use. The installation Bahman’s Wall (2011) is made up of the Bahman cigarette, a low-quality post-revolutionary brand

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alluding to the month of Bahman, when the Revolution took place (Plate 9). As in previous works, Bakhshi uses the formal character of traditional Islamic art to signify contemporary issues in Iran in an ironic way. The wall consists of geometric Islamic motifs executed by the use of numerous cigarettes. The cigarettes and the repetitive presence of the motifs signify a hopeless act that a prisoner might obsessively carry out just to kill time – just like the act of smoking a cigarette.29 This complex work also gently comments on political injustice and its relation to everyday life in contemporary Iran.

The projects of Nazgol Ansarinia (b. 1979) raise similar questions by examining the systems and networks that reinforce her daily life, such as routines, events and experiences, and the relationship they form to a larger social context. Ansarinia’s various projects feature sensuous ornamental images from traditional sources, such as carpets, architecture and old manuscripts. Their inherent contradictions deepen as images of contemporary society are concealed in their traditional shapes. They suggest possibilities for recreating alternative identities out of a rich layering of available pasts. In a moment, this contradiction can fracture and subdivide, in turn, under our gaze. In her Reflections Refractions series, she uses geometric forms that refer to traditional sources as a formal and conceptual device (Plate 10). The works aim to negotiate the questions of representation, imperfection and the poor dissemination of information. For her, representation is understood as a depiction of a scene or an object, a description of an event, the writing of history, or the rendering of a memory. The encountered image and its constituent elements are themselves at odds with their message – the image devours and ejects the message simultaneously.

Each of the artists I have discussed here, who are mostly from the new generation and who have acquired the status of avant-garde practitioners, are wary of the of issues such as ‘Iranian-ness’ and of labels such as ‘Perso-Islamic’ – in particular, of how such issues or labels might invoke stereotypes about Iranian cultural production


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and art, and of the underlying politics of representation (familiar in the debate over Orientalism). In their various ways, they seek to tackle the questions of belonging and identity, and of how to reconcile these issues within the wider context of contemporary international art. They attempt, as the art theorist Irit Rogoff puts it, to avoid naming their identities through their ‘belonging’ to a particular nation or ethnic group, trying instead to find other, more ephemeral and immaterial levels in their heritage which will allow them – and us as viewers – to inhabit a much larger terrain.30 This indeed resonates with the idea of contemporaneity and its aim as a phenomenon that can erase the boundaries of location. This idea is the basis of an understanding that ‘belonging’ is by necessity a performative stance that has to be rehearsed daily. The central challenge is to define an alternative set of criteria, defined from within rather than from outside,31 to express themselves, while also gaining recognition from the art world as it presently exists.

Thus, in the perception of these artists, their central concern is not the marketability or exotic quality of their works, but rather their own effort to depict reality and lived experience. This intellectual strategy renders the contemporary landscape of artistic production an important space for the negotiation of cultural, political and social ‘renewal’. It has created a new trend that questions the sociopolitical and cultural forces driving their society. This is what is often termed ‘contemporary’ artistic and cultural practice. ‘Contemporary’, in this usage, takes on a very specific meaning, relating not to a work’s own aesthetic qualities, but connoting certain politically subversive qualities.

Visual art practice in Iran became compelling, relevant, critical and political – though, significantly, not ideologically political – in the post-Revolutionary era, upon the death of ‘institutional ideology’ as it were. These artists thus refuse a paradigm that solely associates a vernacular language with identity. But it is important to note that I am not merely disputing the opposition between the central and the marginal – some artists’ works have in fact made a good case for

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the deficiency of this binary. These artists are already aware of the traps of authenticity that endorse the globalised art world. As these artists produce and circulate work within local infrastructures, they also negotiate global concepts in a context where local values retain significant power – mainly by appropriating them both.

endnotes1 This attitude is basically the result of the belief that art must have an

intellectual function and should contribute towards representing society, if not serving it. It is a confirmation of Hal Foster’s statement in his essay, ‘The Artist as Ethnographer?’, when he discusses the paradigm in advanced art on the Left. He maintains that ‘there is the assumption that the site of artistic transformation is the site of political transformation, and, more, that this site is always located elsewhere, in the field of the other: in the productivist model, with the social other, the exploited proletariat; in the quasi-anthropological model, with the cultural other, the oppressed post-colonial, subaltern, or subcultural’. Hal Foster, ‘The Artist as Ethnographer?’ in his The Return of the Real (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), p. 302.

2 We can agree with the definition of the art historian and critic Terry Smith, which says that ‘contemporaneity is basically a concept that captures the frictions of the present while corroborating the inevitability of currently competing universalisms, new ways of conceiving the present’. Terry Smith, ‘Contemporary Art and Contemporaneity’, Critical Inquiry 32: 4 (Summer 2006), p. 703. Yet it should also be said that the art growing out of the complexities of contemporaneity does not offer easy explanations. An art truly intertwined with contemporaneity ‘is shaped from its deepest impulses; its surfaces are marked by the interplay of such aspects, from the most fashionable and forward-looking to the most paradoxical, from the most trenchant dichotomies to random particularities’. See Terry Smith, ‘What is Contemporary Art? Contemporaneity and Art to Come’, Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 71: 1–2, p. 11.


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3 For further discussion of post-Revolutionary modernism, see Hamid Keshmirshekan, ‘Discourses on Postrevolutionary Iranian Art: Neotraditionalism during the 1990s’, Muqarnas 23 (2006), pp. 131–57.

4 For details and the role of the museum on the Iranian art scene of this period, see Helia Darabi’s essay in this volume.

5 For discussion of the viability of the relationship between contemporary art and the artistic traditions of Islam, see Sussan Babaie, ‘Voices of Authority: Locating the “Modern” in “Islamic” Arts’, Getty Research Journal 3 (2011), pp. 133–49.

6 An example is the political trauma in the country – in particular the controversial post-2009 election and the associated Green Movement, which attracted intense world attention to Iranian politics and society, and accordingly to its art. This period saw the exceeding emergence of contemporary Iranian art in world exhibitions, galleries and the market itself. Unprecedented attention was also paid to political issues by curators, serving the heightened demand from an international audience for documentary material from within Iran.

7 For a comprehensive account of this theme, see Hamid Keshmirshekan, ‘The Question of Identity vis-à-vis Exoticism in Contemporary Iranian Art’, Iranian Studies 43: 4 (September 2010), pp. 489–512.

8 In Foucault’s view, knowledge (which could include art theory and discourse) is inextricably connected to power. Drawn from Foucault’s idea of power and discourse, as defined by Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby, knowledge refers to a form of power that circulates in the social field and can attach to strategies of domination as well as those of resistance. Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby, eds, Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988), p. 185. Foucault’s focus is upon the question of how some discourses have shaped and created systems of meaning that have gained the status and currency of ‘truth’, and dominate how one defines and organises both oneself and one’s social world, while alternative discourses are marginalised and subjugated, yet potentially offer sites where hegemonic practices can be contested, challenged and resisted.

9 See Hamid Keshmirshekan, ‘Reclaiming Cultural Space: The Artist’s Performativity versus the State’s Expectations in Contemporary Iran’, in Staci Gem Scheiwiller, ed., Performing the Iranian State: Cultural Representations of Identity and Nation (London, New York: Anthem Press, 2013), pp. 145–55.

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10 For further study of the movement and associated socio-cultural developments in Iran, see Hamid Keshmirshekan, ‘Neo-traditionalism and Modern Iranian Painting: The Saqqa-khaneh School in the 1960s’, Iranian Studies 38: IV (December 2005), pp. 607–30.

11 Ramin Jahanbegloo, ‘Introduction’, in Ramin Jahanbegloo, ed., Iran Between Tradition and Modernity (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2004), p. xx.

12 Ibid., p. xxii.

13 Inaugurated in 2008, it is held on the annual celebration of the Islamic Revolution. The festival is divided into two sections, national and international, and categorised according to the media used – the standard, official means of categorisation of the visual arts in Iran. The national section consists of media including painting, sculpture, calligraphy, pottery and ceramics, Persian painting, and the international section includes poster design, photography, cartoons and documentary film.

14 These exhibitions are conventionally held in public art centres and museums under the control of the ministry or the Iranian Academy of the Arts – in particular the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, the Niavaran Cultural Centre and the Saba Cultural and Artistic Centre. For further details, see Hamid Keshmirshekan, Contemporary Iranian Art: New Perspectives (London: Saqi Books Books, 2013), pp. 235, 236.

15 Here, ‘cutting-edge’ refers to new media, site-specific works, or performances located in private spaces or distributed through the artists’ own networks.

16 It is worth mentioning here that it was only for a short period in the post-Revolutionary period that the TMoCA, as well as the Centre of Plastic Arts of Iran (Markaz-i hunar-hay-i tajassumi-i kishvar), played a key role in promoting various forms of contemporary Iranian art. The latter, which came under the control of the Deputy Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance for Artistic Affairs, had been established in 1983, and was directed by the head of the TMoCA. Both the museum and centre have also supported visual arts through the establishment of organised programmes, including giving their biennials more comprehensive aims (and also involving the newly established artists’ societies directly) and holding thematic exhibitions both of contemporary Iranian art and of contemporary European and American art (for example, on twentieth-century British sculpture in 2004 and contemporary Japanese art in 2005). National and international gatherings and academic discussions


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on different aspects of contemporary art and culture were also organised. The museum also increased its international activities by establishing links with other international art institutions and museums, and by lending works from its own collection of Western works (many of which had been unseen for years), as well as through a number of exhibitions of Iranian artists in Europe, America and Asia. For further details on developments in this period, see Hamid Keshmirshekan, ‘Contemporary Iranian Art: the Emergence of New Artistic Discourses’, Iranian Studies 40: 3 (2007), pp. 335–66.

17 One could name the London-based Magic of Persia Contemporary Art Prize (MOPCAP), which was established in 2006 (magicofpersia.com) and the online contemporary art competition Persbook, inaugurated in 2010 (persbookart.com).

18 See, for example, sazmanab.org (accessed on 5 January 2014).

19 In line with this development, the local market has also been powerfully affected, with the creation of private galleries and large art centres. The Tehran annual auction, which follows the schedule of international auctions but on a national scale, and saw its third round in June 2014, is a recent private development in this field. This market particularly favours certain modern Iranian masters, mainly those who were at their height in the 1960s and 1970s, and more marketable media such as painting and sculpture, and on a much smaller scale photography. This interest has also dominated the interest of many commercial galleries. The number of newcomers is increasing, and several young collectors are likewise joining the club. Given the current economic instability of the country and the high degree of liquidity in the hands of a small cluster of rich people, art represents a less risky commodity investment for those who can afford it than many other options. There are other reasons for the growing interest in collecting contemporary (although here rather modern) art locally, mainly on the part of a new generation of rich buyers. One is to gain prestige – as for the rich elsewhere. But this has created problems resulting from the increasingly rarefied and exclusive character of the market.

20 Babaie, ‘Voices of Authority’, p. 139.

21 Khaled D. Ramadan, ‘The Edge of The WC’, in Khaled D. Ramadan, ed., Peripheral Insider: Perspectives on Contemporary Internationalism in Visual Culture (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2007), p. 27.

22 See Keshmirshekan, ‘Question of Identity’.

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23 This interactive installation was performed once again at the Paris exhibition Iranian Art Now, curated by Fereshteh Daftari in 2012.

24 Golshiri’s statement, in Barbad Golshiri, And I Regurgitate And I Gulp It Down (exhibition catalogue), (Tehran: Aaran Gallery, 2011), p. 13.

25 WSI Administration, ‘Barbad Golshiri. Curriculum Mortis’, Wall Street International, 23 September 2013, available at wsimagazine.com/uk/d i a r i e s / agenda/a r t i /ba r bad-go l sh i r i - cu r r i cu lum-mortis_20130923120516.html (accessed on 23 January 2014).

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 Bansie Vasvani, ‘Barbad Golshiri: Curriculum Mortis at Thomas Erben Gallery’, Daily Serving, at dailyserving.com/2013/10/barbad-golshiri-curriculum-mortis-at-thomas-erben-gallery (accessed on 23 January 2013).

29 The artist’s unpublished statement, given to the author.

30 Irit Rogoff, ‘Regional Imagining’, in Hossein Amirsadeghi and Maryam Eisler, eds, Unleashed: Contemporary Art from Turkey (London: TransGlobe, 2010), p. 52.

31 Ibid.


The Crisis of Belonging: On the Politics of Art Practice in Contemporary Iran

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