Challenging Points of Entry: Theorising ‘Modern’ and ‘Contemporary’ Art of Iran

Abstract

It articulates the main concept around which this book is centred, that is, the question of terminology and definitions of modern and contemporary art of Iran. Both by conceptual and historiographical examination of modern and contemporary art in Iran, it tries to theorise the concepts through an alternative art historical account. The chapter takes a step towards (re)tracing the historiography of modern and contemporary art of Iran. It raises the question of whether artworks created outside the Euro-American sphere, the so-called Global North, can be narrated within existing parameters of art historical conceptualisation and classification. It addresses the problem of terminology and temporality together with how these have been interpreted in Iran. The chapter examines the question of whether the history of the modern and contemporary art of Iran can be defined within or in contradiction to the existing parameters and frameworks of Euro-American and Islamic art historical context. It tries to expand upon the genealogies of modern and contemporary art movements in Iran placing them within the Iranian cultural history, including corresponding cultural developments in other fields of the arts such as poetry and literature.