Art of Iran in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries

Hamid Keshmirshekan is an art historian, art critic and Senior Teaching Fellow at the Department of History of Art and Archaeology, School of Arts, SOAS, University of London and Research Associate/Barakat Senior Scholar at the Khalili Research Centre, Oxford University. He was previously Senior Lecturer and head of History of Art department at the Advanced Research Institute of Art (ARIA), Iranian Academy of Arts (2013-17), Research Associate at the London Middle East Institute (2013-2019), Associate Fellow at the Faculty of Oriental Studies and History of Art Department at Oxford University (2004-12) and Chief Editor of the quarterly Art Tomorrow – the bilingual (English-Persian) journal on modern and contemporary art of the Middle East and its diaspora (2009-13). He received his PhD in History of Art from SOAS, University of London in 2004 and was post-doctoral fellow at KRC, Oxford University (2004-5, 2011-13) and the British Academy, AHRC and ESRC (2008-9). Since 1994 he has taught art history and theory in British and Iranian universities, has organised several international conferences and events on aspects of modern and contemporary art of Iran and the Middle East, has acted as a keynote speaker in museums and academic conferences, has curated a number of contemporary art exhibitions and has contributed extensively to various publications. His latest publications include Humorous Art Practices in the Contemporary Middle East: Reacting to Cultural Stereotyping, (forthcoming-2022),Cultural Essentialism in the Context of Neo-Orientalism: The Exposure of Contemporary Art Practices from the Middle East (2019), Kankashi dar Hunar-i mu’asir-i iran (Contemporary Iranian Art), 2nd edition (2017), Contemporary Art from the Middle East: Regional Interactions with Global Art Discourses (ed.) (2015).

This book serves as an essential foundational text for those seeking to deepen their knowledge of the development and trajectories of modern and contemporary art in Iran.

• List of Figures Note on Transliteration Acknowledgements Introduction Part I Defining the Framework and Developing Conceptual Definitions1 Challenging Points of Entry: Theorising ‘Modern’ and ‘Contemporary’ Art of Iran 2 Historiography of Modern and Contemporary Art of Iran Part II Discourses on Modern and Contemporary Art3 The Discourse of Neo-traditionalism: Reflecting the Past into the Present 4 Discourses on Post-revolutionary Art: The 1980s and Early 1990s 5 The Paradigms of Contemporary Art: The Contemporary versus the Specific Part III Art Practice and Socio-cultural Discourses6 The Politics of Art Practice in Contemporary Iran 7 Artists’ Attempts to Reclaim Cultural Space versus the State’s Cultural Prescriptions 8 Exhibiting Essentialism: Exoticism and its Attendant Uniformity 9 Humorous Art Practices: A Strategic Response to Stereotyping General Bibliography Index