Persia Reframed: Iranian Visions of Modern and Contemporary Art

The modern and contemporary art of Iran has often been understood, and positioned by commercial institutions, as decorative or ethnic – hence the focus on calligraphy and veiled women. At a scholarly level it has been characterized as a comment on the socio-political context of the country. Viewing Iranian art as neither a commodity, nor an illustration of theory, Fereshteh Daftari approaches the modern art of Iran as a democratic space where pluralism – a range of different styles and ideas – can thrive. This art historical exploration offers new insights into Iranian art, from the late nineteenth century Qajar period, via the Saqqakhaneh movement of the 1960s and into the contemporary world. In the process the author comments on the concept of modernism in a non-Western environment and the shifting meanings of abstraction. She takes both a specific and a panoramic view of Iranian art to expose new themes such as the subversive appropriation of traditional art, whilst also tackling more perennial issues such as gender. With experience as an international curator, Daftari reviews the representations of Iranian artists outside the country and discusses the varied angles from which she has introduced the art to a Western audience. She explains how in the process she has steered clear of contentious rubrics, valorized contemporary media, and probed the complex relation between the individual and the political.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Prologue. Chapter I. Modernism(s): Contextualizing the Terms of Discussion Chapter II. Saqqakhaneh Revisited Chapter III. Tanavoli in Context Chapter IV. Abstraction to Figuration: Politics of Morphology Chapter V. The Tip of the Iceberg: Contemporary Art in Iran and Its Diaspora Chapter VI: Introducing Iranian Art Abroad: A Curatorial Perspective

About the Author :
Fereshteh Daftari was Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) between 1999 and 2009, where she curated 13 exhibitions. She is now an independent scholar who has also curated exhibitions on contemporary art at institutions in New York, Paris and Toronto. She has a PhD in Art History from Columbia University, New York.

Review :
`There is no more appropriate time to read a book as erudite and illuminating as Fereshteh Daftari’s Persia Reframed… This is a work of global importance that initiates conversations and comparisons across countries that share aesthetic projects and cultural preoccupations that are clouded, too often, by the banal politics of blindness and rage.’ `Fereshteh Daftari’s elegantly illustrated Persia Reframed brings a fresh perspective to the development and complexity of modern and contemporary art in Iran over the last seventy years.’ 'A pioneering independent curator in her field, with long experience at New York's Museum of Modern Art, Fereshteh Daftari at last offers a scholarly and critically insightful account of the numerous currents and cross currents of modern and contemporary art in Iran before and after the Islamic Revolution.’