Document Type : Original Article
Author
Research Center For Culture, Art And Communications
Abstract
The Islamic Revolution of 1979 counts as a turning point in artistic changes and developments in Iran. After the Islamic Revolution, Iranian art studies in the West which mainly focused on the Islamic era and ancient Persia, somehow changed direction to post-revolutionary art. This article investigates major currents in post-revolutionary Iranian visual art studies from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. There is no comprehensive research in this direction, as the existing literature mainly concentrates on historical trends in contemporary art studies. The methodology of this research is descriptive-analytic. From about 3000 primary search titles in the field of studies, 50 selected texts (including book chapters, articles, and doctoral or master theses) are analyzed using meta-synthesis to find dominant currents in these texts. Among these, 26 texts are from the United States, 11 texts are from the United Kingdom, 3 texts are from Germany and 10 texts are from France.
To extract the necessary data, based on the meta-synthesis method, the keywords of the texts were identified and categorized in the form of subcategories. Then, by comparing and recategorizing the subcategories in more general formats, the final categories were extracted. By comparing the categories and their points of commonality and difference, the main themes were determined and in order to identify the main cirrents, the central topics raised in each theme were categorized and analyzed. To ensure the accuracy of the qualitative content analysis, these topics were matched with the theoretical literature used in the texts and the centrality of the selected topics was ensured. Finally, by categorizing the core topics under several general headings, the prominent currents were identified.
The prominent currents of Western texts on the post-revolution Iranian visual arts are all formed around the artistic experience in post-revolution Iran and the effects of ideological discourse, on one hand, and the discourse of domination, on the other hand, on it. The findings of this research reveal three major currents, including ‘Investigating the dimensions and challenges of artistic experience in post-revolutionary Iran’ (focusing on the conscious construction of identity and the contemporaneity concern), ‘evaluating the effects of institutionalization in post-revolutionary art’ (with a focus on social institutionalization and public space, and cultural institutionalization and globalization), and ‘analyzing gender experiences in post-revolutionary art’ (focusing on hijab stereotyping and validating immigrant or diaspora art). Due to the crucial role of cross-cultural exchanges in the delineation of strategic functions of art and the exigency of recognition of Western views to track these exchanges, the results of this research are significant for the art community as well as policymakers in the artistic arena. The achievements of studies such as the present research can be used to regulate the mechanisms of art production and consumption, as well as to modify and adjust artistic and cultural diplomacy in both national and global arenas.
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