A Crooked Path through History: Iranian Exile Art

In: Social research: an international quarterly, Volume 91, Issue 2, p. 687-706

Abstract

ABSTRACT: By tracing the relationship between the work and the world, Iranian exile art reveals alternative perspectives on key historical moments, from the 1953 coup to the current climate crisis. The artists Siah Armajani, Nicky Nodjoumi, Shirin Neshat, Simin Keramati, Arghavan Khosravi, Pouran Jinchi, and Gelare Khoshgozaran emigrated from Iran between 1960 and 2012. Through a range of media—from painting to sculpture, from political posters to film—these artists have developed a distinct visual language to convey their own exilic experience. Mapping this art offers a cartography of exile shaped by the fraught, overlapping histories of Iran and the United States.