Scientific Journal of Pazhuhesh-e Honar

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Bashtani M S, Moridi M R, Kamrani B. Heterotopia in the Neo-Qajarist works of contemporary Iranian artists. SciJPH 2024; 14 (28) :15-31
URL: http://ph.aui.ac.ir/article-1-1341-en.html

For artists, history is not a set of fixed documents and linear narratives of events; Rather, it is such a text for rereading and reinterpretation. Iranian contemporary artists have also referred to history many times in their works; In particular, historical characters and events and collective memories of Qajar have become the basis for the creation of contemporary works. Because Qajar was the threshold of Iran's confrontation with modernity and the gap in traditional identities and the beginning of the formation of modern identity. In this article, the artists who have reinterpreted the themes and motifs of the Qajar period in a contemporary context in their works are called neo-Qajar artists. The question of the present article revolves around the fact that these artists, by breaking and manipulating the known signs of the Qajar era and bricolage-like reconstruction of the Qajar signs, have dealt with the contradictions outside and inside the Qajar period and, in fact, Iran's confrontation with modernity. They have portrayed a challenging and tense atmosphere in their works, which can be described as heterotopic works, according to Michel Foucault. Heterotopia refers to critical, distorted, restless and sometimes upside-down spaces that disturb the continuity and normality of usual and known spaces. The heterotopic space is often time-disordered and mixes elements and signs from the past with signs from the present to show the instability of contemporary identities and the instability and fluidity of modern experiences. Based on this, in this article, the following question is followed: What are the heterotopian features in the neo-Nagajarist art? How have contemporary artists reread the history of modernity in Iran by manipulating and reconstructing the signs and collective memories of the Qajar period? To answer these questions, firstly, the components of heterotopia in Michel Foucault's point of view were discussed, and then the works of some contemporary artists were examined with the methodology of interpretative analysis. The results showed how artists have created a heterotopic space in neo-Qajarist works with characteristics such as spatial and temporal discontinuity, dialectical relationship with the past, proximity and overlap of contradictions, creation of metaphorical spaces, critical manipulation of signs, and fluidity and openness in interpretation. . In these works, neo-Qajarist artists present a kind of sarcasm and critical irony to the distress in Iran's contemporary identity by rearranging the past and manipulating the historical identity.