Feminist Studies 44, no. 2. © 2018 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 303 Jean Kane Parastou Forouhar’s Domestic Sublime Torture is “world-destroying,” Elaine Scarry declares in her controversial meditation The Body in Pain.1 She argues that torturers annihilate everyday existence by turning the implements of home into weapons. Parastou Forouhar suggests that torture is in equal measure world-making , or even home-making. The German Iranian artist uses decoration , considered secondary in the Western canon of fine art, to represent home as both beautiful and punitive. At first glance, her designs appear as nonreferential embellishment of wallpaper, upholstery, and fabric swatches. Upon inspection, the colored patches resolve into body parts, the arabesque arrangements into knives and knuckledusters, the sinuous, calligraphic lines into nooses and gags. Forouhar adapts the techniques of Persian decorative arts to produce such effects. Through variations on a small repertoire of forms, each pattern shows the simultaneous creation and regimentation of figures. Meanings emerge from the scrutiny of everyday appearances. The work calls for a dialectical and mobile female gaze, conditioned by the viewer’s position and perspective . Through her aesthetic and her subject matter, Forouhar questions a contemporary celebration of surfaces. At the same time, the artist treats 1. Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 29, 44. 304 Jean Kane the beautiful surface as a sensuous lure that is not merely false or artificial . Rather than optical illusion, Forouhar aims for optical realization. I first saw Forouhar’s work in the 2007 “Global Feminisms” exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. Her installation, Thousand and One Days—Wallpaper I–II (2003–), was one of the most engaging pieces in a rich and compelling show. I was impressed with its combination of delicate lyricism and brutal subject matter, as well as its deft, digitally produced draftsmanship. From a distance, the pink and black pattern on a white background appeared as an unusual but appealing interior design. As I came closer, the pink and black patterns resolved into figures torturing and being tortured by one another. “The viewer is thrown back on himself and forced to reevaluate his perception,” Forouhar says.2 In her interpretation, tawhid, or divine harmony, depends on proximity and distance, on duration of attention. “All surfaces are covered with the vibrations of patterns,” the artist observes. “They represent the harmony of the world, of God’s all-embracing power and beauty. But this untouchable harmony can only be appreciated from a distance, as it conceals a great potential for brutality.”3 In 2007, when I saw the installation, Forouhar was an established artist. She had shown in solo and group exhibitions in Europe, Iran, Australia, and elsewhere. I soon discovered the scope of her production, which included photographs, prints, installations, books, signs, and furniture . She focused on the figure, in work that registered joy, wit, and playfulness as well as gravity. Her turn to the subject matter of violence resulted from her parents’ assassination in their Tehran home in 1998.4 Shaped by their murder and her direct activism in response, Forouhar has gained increased attention as a political artist. This emphasis in her reception has to some extent obscured her feminist grounding. In the 2. Brigitte Werneburg, “‘You Have to Have Faith in People’: An Interview with the Iranian Artist Parastou Forouhar,” Deutsche Bank Art Magazine 55 (2012), http://db-artmag.com/en/55/feature/an-interview-with-parastou-forouhar. 3. Rose Issa, ed., Parastou Forouhar: Art, Life and Death in Iran (London, UK: Saqi, 2010), 17. 4. Kazem Alamdari, “The Power Structure of the Islamic Republic of Iran: Transition from Populism to Clientelism and Militarization of the Government,” Third World Quarterly 26, no, 8 (2005): 1294; Fariba Amini, “It Happened on Hedayet Street,” The Iranian, November 22, 2002, http://iranian.com /Arts/2002/November/Forouhar/index.html. Jean Kane 305 wallpaper installation and in related two-dimensional work, Forouhar feminizes the violated body composed by ornamental design. She challenges the separation of domestic violence and state terror; of surface allure and deep structures of regimentation; of patriarchies often conflated and opposed under the asymmetrical rubrics “Muslim”—read as synonymous with...
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Sep 9, 2020
Hideo Sawada + 2
Open Access