The World of Iranian Images in foreigners’ eyes
Farairan does not necessarily agree with all the notions and views put forward in this article.
The World of Iranian Images in foreigners’ eyes
Sholeh Mostafavi
Translated by Roya Monajem
Source: Herfe: Honarmand (Profession: Artist)
Art Quarterly Magazine
Vol.7, No.33, Summer 2010
A graduate of art history and archeology of the Middle East and Europe from the University of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Frankfurt, Sholeh Mostafavi worked for five years in the Islamic arts department of one of the museums of Frankfurt. She then moved to Karlsruhe (2004) to work in the only German museum covering the Culture and Arts of None-European countries. She has curated several exhibitions on the contemporary arts of eastern countries in general and Iran in particular. In 2009 she curated four exhibitions in the Karlsruhe’s women festival called Iran.
Interpretation of all prejudgments and images that cultures hold in regard to each other is indeed a difficult task. One of the characteristic features of our time is the flood of media images which leave a determining impression on social relations as well as our presentation of images, whether of ourselves or others. This gives rise to new virtual domains which transcend mental geographical boundaries, thereby making the nature of media arts more tangible. The dynamic systems of image production mix and merge using cultural clichés in order to contrast or compare them. Their prospering market makes it difficult to avoid them. In this way innovation is sacrificed at the feet of marketplace.
For many years, Iranian art was used mostly for political propaganda and did not appeal to the West for the same reason, until the Reformation of 1997 when it found a chance to resume its relation with the art world and attract the public attention on a larger scale. The works of the Iranian artist Shirin Neshat, residing in America played a significant role here. Her collection of photographs called Women of Allah, emerging in 1994 show combative women covered with chador with their visible outlines totally painted and obscured by Persian alphabets. This was the impression her visit to Iran and all the changes she witnessed in her birthplace made on her. Her next work, which attracted international attention was a video trilogy titled Turbulent, Rapture and Fervor (Images No 1 to 7) which won her the International Award of forty eighth biennial of Venice. Since then Shirin Nesaht is considered one of the most distinguished representatives of contemporary art. In the above first two videos, the artist separates and distinguishes the two genders spatially by two curtains facing each other. The separation carried out dramatically in this subtle way is further by reducing colors to only black and white. With the help of a decorative arrangement, she places each gender in a single group while on the other hand she resolves them into individuals facing each other and ultimately the audience. Implicit reference to Islam, both in the appearance of protagonists and/or to their behavioral patterns is prominent. With the metaphorical language of her images and typical feminine sounds like when they express their joy or sadness in weddings and mourning, Shirin Neshat attempts to combine real and fantasy. The characteristic feature of this style is an allusion to the lasting aesthetic past and tradition of the Iranian art of calligraphy and singing, but in an obscured way. Now the question is how do such allegorical images, often filled with poetry, and rich in a pervasive charm appear to the eyes of the western audience? In her Women of Allah, the western audience unfamiliar with Forough Farokhzad’s poetry and unable to read them, takes them for calligraphic decoration seen in Arabic texts and relates their messages to Islamic rituals. (Image No 8 ) From another perspective the very title of these photographs and videos is like a proof of the information the western media give their audience about the religious government ruling Iran. In addition, while in the eyes of the western audience, word and image follow an evident content, but because of their imposing exaggerated black and white juxtapositions together with those elegy-like, ritualistic events and readings of cultural domains, which simultaneously associate “primitive” or in other words “philistine,” it seems, Shirin Neshat has managed to find the pulse of western audience at its most sensitive point.
Images of this kind which were more closely examined after September 11 and the curiosity it stirred for discovery of the “noble savages” and their candid expression of “unrestrained passion,” subsequently gave rise to a blooming market for the works of Iranian artists in the west. A generation of young artists reaching artistic maturity thus managed to present numerous works covering a wide spectrum from artworks devoid of time and era like audiovisual works (films and animations) to interactive collections, installations, paintings, etc. While many galleries abroad began to exhibit artworks of this kind, with an eye to their independent artistic quality, but it seemed they essentially resonated a hidden affinity toward an irrational world which simultaneously or separately unveiled the same romantic notions about the ancient savage Iran which exist about this country today.
But what is the status and esteem of Iranian art today? What may be its place in the wide spectrum of history of art monopolized by the west? What sort of features and how many should it possess to be included there? Will the Iranians living abroad, reflecting their cultural background through the outlet of a new milieu be considered among the distinguished figures of this art? And who can assess these works? Those living in Iran or those who after a long absence are looking back at the art of their ancient birthplace? Or is it those western curators who in search of new materials and in the hope of finding a flood of visitors which is a determining factor for the survival of the existing art institute’s are stepping into new paths? Would we refrain from visiting their exhibitions merely because in an attempt to search for and rediscover native art and artists living in the darkness and obscurity of unapproved competency, they are appealing to those regions of the world which are considered politically unsafe? The answer to these questions is closely related to the definition of identity. It is evident that no society has ever had a single unchangeable identity even in the past, without carrying the weight of its gradual course of transformation together with its various manifestations. Today however, there are surely more historical changes accumulating in the course of one’s life which in turn bring about personal changes which forces one to go beyond the rigid concept of identity and re-define oneself repeatedly. Meanwhile, migration to a foreign cultural environment, particularly in the era of the internet is just one of the real forms of manifestation of identity among its numerous forms and considering the universal effects of the media, the question here is how is identity formed and how can one maintain a ‘pure’ Iranian identity immune to outside influences? When the creator of an artwork is an Iranian living in the heart of contradictions existing in his/her society based on Islamic values, finding it almost impossible or even undesirable to avoid modernism, then from the perspective of a persistent observer, he/she sees art as a proof of the status quo as well as the means of expression of pride and ideas.
From this perspective one can foresee why reflection upon the question of the future and the role of artist and religion in it becomes an integrative part of Iranian contemporary art. An Iranian artist is a frontiersman or woman, that is, one who constantly has to determine her/his position, and prove her/his originality. One who is continuously swayed between one’s own cultural traditions and modern global innovations, constantly finding oneself in an intra-social state of activity and stagnation, thereby forced to confess to her/his attachment to a multiple identity. We have been witnessing the emergence of various utopias from such cultural merging and multiple identities in the cyber space and the internet, which incidentally is the most appropriate meeting place for this purpose. However, in the world of art, the same impressions are manifested in a free swing between popular visual languages, the selection of a definite visual subject or in turning oneself into a medium. Consequently, it is not accidental that “homosexuals” as an example of individuals, who have changed their gender and thus have to struggle with a double identity when living in an Islamic society, make up the theme of artworks. (Negar Tahsili, One Thousand One Night, video, 2008, Asoo khanmohammadi, Untitled, Photography collection, 2008). Another example are women with Islamic covering, operated noses, blue lenses, blond hair outshining even Hollywood stars (Farhad Moshiri/Shirin Aliabadi, Miss Hybrid, 2006) (Image No 9 ). No matter how much the selection of such topics would be more understandable in Iran merely because of their critical capacity in the evaluation of the concept of individuality, but the danger threatening it from outside is equally greater, because when the western viewer directs his/her hasty attention caught in his/her own intellectual patterns to these works, he/she smells that ‘explosive’ moment of a micro-culture which could not be expressed in any other way due to evident social limitations. However, the perspective that the relation with modern world can lead to a creative awareness and liberation from the ruling political structures has not played a role in western thought for a long time now.(1)
This is not the first time when two different phenomena are juxtaposed: in one we see the tendency of certain individuals and groups coming from the Middle East constantly preoccupied with their national identity and the way to maintain it; while the other gives expression to the experience that one’s birthplace is classified as the “Orient” simply from a historical and geographical perspective devoid of any precision and exactitude. The latter coincides with a more conscious return to the concept of Orientalism and illusions attached to it in regard to the exotic, with its first visual representations emerging around the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and later in seventies in the work of certain western postmodern artists (including a collection of works by Bill Viola). Today, artists of countries which are arbitrarily identified as ‘Islamic’ or ‘Oriental’ by the West are serving the same Oriental clichés, no doubt with the hope that their art would achieve success and appreciation in the west. Some of these artists appeal to ancient and illusory areas attributed to the East such as harem (Afshan Ketabchi, Harem, 2005) or Hamam (public bath) (Shirin Nesaht, Zarin, video 2005). Another group are making use of either identifying symbols (for example Farkhondeh Shahroudi with her Persian Carpet, Garden in Garden (Image No 10 ) / Madjnoun, environmental art, 2003, or Jalal Sepehri, with his photography collection, Water and Persian rugs, 2004) or symbols now used in the service of ideological concepts, such as chador or hair (Barbad Golshiri, What has befallen us, Barbad?, video 2002, Mandana Moqadam, Chelgis (Forty hair plaits) I-III, installation, video 2004-06) (Image No 11 ). In fact this group of artists use the role of women, woman and religion (Barbad Golshiri, Mami, video installation, 2008) (Image No 12 ) or the mechanism of censorship under Iran’s religious state (Ramin Haerizadeh, Tazieh (passion play), tripartite, print/ Ghazal , Wedding collection, photography 2002), as their main themes. Meanwhile in his interactive work called Coffee shop Ladies (2004-05) (Image No 13) Amirali Ghasemi, an artist running an art gallery in Tehran managed to approach the subject of political censorship in a playful way by covering the so-called obscene body of the women (obscene in the sense of not being properly covered) that is their faces and arms with white planes. By clicking on these planes, they turn into formless bodies, while the viewer can simultaneously hear the voice of these faceless women talking about themselves. The male figures, silent and immune to censorship, remain anonymous. The feeling of intimacy created by the sense of touch in these works turn the passive viewer into an active follower and complicit who has negligently approved the policy of sexual discrimination in Iran. In contrast to this, the theme of Ghasemi’s more recent photography collection called Party is not unfamiliar for western audience. The theme and working tools of these photographs are similar to those of his Coffee Shop collection. What distinguishes them is that here figures are shown in private milieus of houses instead of coffee shops and that is why the faces of men are painted white. In a review about his works, the German weekly art magazine Die Zeit wrote: The young artist Amirali Ghasemi shows his care-free pals feasting in secret parties, but in order to avoid censorship he has painted all the faces white (No.51, p.74, 2008).
Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Iranian artists have appealed to visual metaphors and allegories for various reasons. Following the initial stage of experimentation when metaphors not only played a significant role in the sense of their key symbolic function in interpretation of artworks, but also in the sense that they provided a free space for artists to express the unsaid, there was a period when artists began to use metaphors in an extremely exaggerated way, without getting anywhere for this very reason. Today however, with the new awakened insight and approach toward the West, the main reason that many artists still tend to use metaphors is that by taking their real form as a cliché in an ironic ridiculous way, thereby neutralizing their double meaning, they intend to unveil them. In addition, by harmonizing certain cultural clichés they try to present a more precise picture of a pervasive deception which can include the whole world. That is how harem women who appear to have jumped directly from the Qajar paintings into Afshan Ketabchi’s photographs turn out to be little Playboy rabbits (Harem 2005) (Image No 14).
Yet, sometimes it is not clear whether the western audience can actually grasp the distorted caricaturized social reality such metaphorical works represent or not. When Shadi Ghadirian’s photographs called Like Every day (2002) (Image No 15) showing women with totally covered bust became famous in Germany, it seemed that their interpretation was clear to the audience: Women covered in chador with their heads and faces replaced by house equipments attract the attention to the known […] status of Moslem women imprisoned in the privacy of the house. It was only with Elke Reinhuber’s printed collection of photographs on fabric that the chance of a closer examination of those works came at hand. Calling the collection, Me and Myself, this German artist has used herself as the main motif, slipping under the skin of seven different roles treating them as her clone, showing each with the kind of house paraphernalia and appearances appropriate to that role. As the text accompanying one of these photos explains: This woman with fashionable short red hair is a physician who tries to break the monotony of her daily life by going after illegitimate relations. If we leave out the history of the emergence of these two collections, we will see an essential similarity between eastern and western women in a unifying way. Dealing with the same single visual subject, but based on their corresponding cultural bed, they carry the same message either in the form of irony or criticism: The status and position of women whose identity is under the influence of division of roles, the expectations she has of herself and has surrendered to as well as all the ideas which determine what she should be or what she should want. […] women whose competency is ripped away by the patriotic order […]. Ultimately and in total compliance, we can say in short that here too the story is all about the same old lasting familiar misery promoting and cultivating certain role-models.
Since the appearance of Edward Said’s Orientalism, the concept has turned into a hot controversial topic finding its way into the domain of cultural studies as well. In his book, Said, a literary theoretician and critic sees conflict with the other as a hidden tendency in the history of western philosophy since sixteenth century and interprets it as a form of projected ethnology contrasting the ‘mysterious east’ with the ‘enlightening west.’
On the other hand, a new tendency called “primitivism’ emerged in arts at the beginning of the twentieth century, as the result of the appearance of an increasing number of photographs taken at the spot and also numerous travel accounts prepared by western adventurers.
This new art trend, particularly in the sphere of painting was tainted with a sort of idealism in regard to uncivilized peoples and most of all in connection with their rituals, myths and symbols, whose very existence had an irresistible enchantment for western artists and intellectuals since the Renaissance and its dominant systematic de-mystifying and deciphering enlightening philosophy. In the works of that era, voyeurism, and the sharp penetrating eyes of the ‘enlightened’ viewer looking at uncivilized, yet passionate peoples filled with myths and mysteries, and their spiritually-oriented world in contrast to his own world was an integrative part of understanding those works. The same is true about postmodern era when neo-primitivism with partially kitsch works (in the sense of being disconnected with their roots) devoid of their initial content were publicized. The main characteristic of western visual art, which can be described as appropriation of images from other cultures, disconnecting them from their original bed and their subsequent representation without further translation or interpretation, thereby transforming a culture into a quasi-culture was re-tried a few decades later, this time with new means of artistic expression. Once again the west occupied the position of identifying subject or better to say the judge while the east was forced to play the role of the object of identification, succumbing to the judgment made. Ultimately, no efficient means remained to enable the society which used to call itself civilized to consider itself better and higher than eastern societies.
Today, we are facing exactly the same phenomenon for the third time, but in a very different form, this time in regard to the contemporary Iranian art. As soon as the veiled women, the image of martyrs whether alone or in groups and similar motives (Newsha Tavakolian, Mothers of Martyrs, photography, 2006) (Image No 16 ), reflect symbols of the Middle Ages, or of rituals and ceremonies in photographs, animations or installations, the pegs of a hook opened to trap a complicated universal aesthetics are closed, the kind of aesthetics that feeds a cheap vulgar culture with the warms of the table of a surreal Buyutiqa (or Butiqa, Arabicised title of Aristotle’s Poetica). This is especially evident in photography and video productions because their closeness to reality makes the viewer wonder whether to count them as documentaries or art. If something of Iranian daily life, its double social standards finds its way into these photos, they assume the capacity of social political criticism, even though the creator has not necessarily intended to produce political art. What is surprising is how Kant’s grandchildren are enchanted by works created in a new allegorical way and with the use of arabesque images.
Nevertheless, it is a long time that the collective myths no longer reflect a vivid interpretation of the world of human experiences. Therefore, preoccupation with them particularly in the era of domination of economy, turn them rather into commodities which can be bought and sold all over the world through the virtual networks. In these networks, artists become dealers in the widening ring of clients who need to satisfy their urge for sensual and metaphysical with story telling and decorative aesthetics. Meanwhile, the Orient in general and Iran in particular, with its solitary tradition in decorative arts including calligraphy, word, image and its affinity toward mysterious and mystification of any aspect of life offers an endless pure source of inspiration.
But what will happen if the Iranian artist tries to create something contrary to Orientalism? Describing his project presented in the form of a trilogy titled: Orientalist, Terrorist and Occidentalist, Khosrow Hassanzadeh mentions several significant points in the DVD magazine Treibsand (2007). In the first series which includes a collection of silk screens in large sizes, he displays his female family members in an exaggerated, yet pleasant way as in religious icons calling them ‘terrorist.’ While leaning against his mother image (in the same series), with an issue of the same magazine on her lap and between her hands, he speaks of his vain efforts in finding interested sponsors for the last part of his project. (Image No 17)
His desire to try a change of status in the ethnologic system from a realistic objective point of view was not welcomed as could be expected. Incidentally such works should have incited additional interest in the era of globalization because they present and elaborate complicated mutual cultural relations and influences which in turn coincide with a startling change, the cessions of criteria and principles of the western art tradition. Creation of infinite bewilderment through punctilious irony is the ground where Parastou Forouhar shows off her skill. In her installations she works with native and foreign cultural clichés, but in their wrong reading and through partial manipulation of their norm producing elements she goes beyond them. In her Blind Spot (digital print 2003) (Image No 18) she totally turns the habitual way of looking upside down: The arch of the bald head of a man wearing a chador in the traditional customary way hurts the viewer as much as her Friday (quadripartite, digital print, 2003) (Image No 19), with the double impression of the two fingers stealthily peeping out relating an erotic symbol in a cryptic way, exerts on the audience.
When the signs of the visual representation of an oriental scene are upturned and the oriental artist changes her subject from an observed position to the observer of the observed, it would be evident that those so-called “realities” were nothing but fake. In this way, common traditional habits of looking find new vistas and artworks achieve deeper meaning. With the help of visual analysis of decorative elements Parastou Forouhar has reached a new approach. She finds the beauty of the intricate fine Iranian ornaments in their regular repetition of similar motives which on one hand is the result of mysterious emerging out of harmony and on the other hand is an order and network representing the patterns of ideological power.
Iranian painting and sculpture attracted relatively less attention from the beginning. Could this be because their interpretation appeared more complicated to endure the impatience of the western art history experts and the changes of painting in Iran?
Following the period beginning at the end of the nineteenth century, the period of superficial learning of European painting (mainly naturalism), a movement began in 1960s in search of national identity with the Saqakhaneh school. The rightful criticism that can be said about this school, decorative in nature and suffering from lack of innovation –widely popular among students of the newly established art colleges of the given decade– was that national motives were now incorporated in various styles of European painting. The palette of painters embraced all their styles, from realism to impressionism to cubism and surrealism – still present in Iranian painting with the same known intricacies and problematic questions in regard to adoption of foreign cultural achievements. In contrast to the assumption of the west that under Shiitism, painting is devoid of elaborated figures, there are rare inspiring examples in post-Islamic Iran which prove otherwise. When the influence of European culture is consciously reflected in the work of an artist and is incorporated in the context of a multi-layered relation, a remarkable phenomenon emerges, whether in Elehah Heydari’s portraits (untitled, painting 2005) (Image No 20 ) where her robust female figures, free of the limitations of blunt symbols and immersed in their own world consciously avoid voyeurism and do not allow any kind of projection or in solitary metamorphosed heroes of Ahmad Morshedlu (Image No 21 ) pushed into narrow corners exposed to intense direct light, abandoned and awaiting their collective salvation. When blind imitation from foreigners is put aside for the sake of attainment of a visual inter-cultural language, a space opens for an unsaid relation in which there is no need for salient metaphors. The same is true about Iman Afsarian’s still lives and abandoned residential spaces (Untitled, painting 2003-06) (Image No 22 ) immersed in a vague light, where he makes absence his theme, and build a bridge across science and society, past and present. Even when the western film stars like Liza Minnelli, Martin Donovan, Elina Lownsohn are separated from their film context, and put together in Samira Eskandarfar’s painting what film? (2006), a new inter-cultural relationship is emerged as the result of additional explanations in the form of words flowing out of their mouths. In this way, the artwork turns into the reflection of the real which is as banal as entertaining, as superficial as sensational; a reality full of contrasts and incoherence in which different cultures face each other on the same level.
The fact that non-European art inevitably establishes itself in the context of an art history which is global and free from the limitation of a one-dimensional historical expression ultimately goes back to this fact that visual arts have separated themselves from traditional European concepts and ideas. In painting and sculpture their conventional separation has already been actualized because the artwork has lost its initial static standard form and expression with the intention to attain immortality.
Throughout the world, artists look at the future cultural and technological challenges by creating videos, media arts, installations and other performing arts. The unquestionable desire of Iranian artists to have a share in this change has created works reflecting a flexible approach to the world outside and inside, traditional and modern, art and kitsch, familiar and unfamiliar affairs. In addition, their media and network artworks have been well received because they reflect their efforts in visualization of the language of writing, which was not known until now. In this way, writing as an independent topic or the means of expression is increasingly interacting with the visualized image, without reducing the meaning of the image to its traditional function, i.e. painting. In this way, Iranian artists find the opportunity to continue their tradition (Simin Keramati, Self-portrait, video 2007-08) (Image No 23).
In addition, these images easily escape the usual comparisons of cultural studies because here we are facing images which have internalized the intertwining and networking of life spaces and activity for a long time now and therefore have indiscreetly been linked with all kinds of arts and art styles. For example, extraordinary surreal projects which show the concepts of the Theater of the Absurd in a new way based on the context (Farhad Fozouni, Waiting for Godot, Documentation of Chat room Performance, 2005) or comic and pantomime performances (Samira Eskandarfar, Monologue Under White Light, video, 2005) (Image No 24 ) or even caricatures. These images drive their power from their perpetual transience, diffusion and continuous change of their perspective. In this arena, extraordinary works possessing sensual and impulsive aesthetics worthy of further contemplation emerge too. Simin Keramati’s works are an example which drives their strength not from the repeated glorification of symbols, but from conscious arrangement of a skillful performance of disconnections in the langue of image. Her video installation, Silence (2005) (Image No 25) is another example; a man is shown turning a rosary slowly in his hand with the clashing of beads annoyingly breaking the silence. In this way, Keramati reveals the religious and masculine structure of hierarchy in Iran in the form of a ritual which seems inescapable and eternal. In her quadripartite work, Four Elements (video 2006-07) (Images No 26 to 31 ) she does not deal with the creative aspect of the traditional theory of four elements, earth, fire, water and wind as the building blocks of the whole universe. Instead she sees them as destructive forces passing the verdict: ‘to be or not to be’ by virtue of their self-sufficient power symbol. In these and other Iranian contemporary artworks the boundaries between fantasy and reality are consciously crossed over and over again and the distinction between observer and observed is obliterated. (Simin Keramati, The Upper edge of the Well, video 2002-03) or distorted in the interest of a systematic role exchange. When artworks like Ghazaleh Hedayat’s Untitled video (2005) drive the viewer toward the dilemma of surrendering to an endless judging look staring at her/him with motionless eyes, then the mechanism of Orientalism loses its effect. When what appeared familiar becomes unfamiliar and thus the divided self-alienation shown in the image is questioned, when images only intend to baffle and provoke in order to make the viewer think and pause, then the concepts and notions are forced to change and ultimately the inter-cultural dialogue which the west has repeatedly asked for automatically begins, at least in the sphere of cultural discourse.
(1) :
This is not true that today Western thinkers and artists no longer use art for this purpose. See Chantal Mouffe, Artistic Activist and Agonistic Spaces.
/Articles/ArticleDetailEn.aspx?src=104&Page=1
