In recent years, we have witnessed a fortunate upsurge in the publication of books dedicated to the exploration of various facets of Iranian modern and contemporary art. These publications have significantly contributed to our understanding of Iranian artistic culture, illuminating its diverse manifestations and the intricate complexities that underlie them.
The Graduate Center for Literary Research at UCSB is pleased to host three separate events that brings together three distinguished scholars, each of whom has recently authored a work on Iranian art in the twentieth century. These authors will engage in discussions with emerging scholars who work on Iranian art, facilitating a dynamic exchange of ideas. By placing Iranian art scholarship in conversation with scholars from different institutions worldwide, these dialogues promise to offer insights and deepen our critical understanding of the multifaceted landscape of Iranian art and its position in the global scene.
Katrin Nahidi is postdoctoral researcher in the department of arts and musicology at the University of Graz. She has taught at the University of Graz, the University of Osnabrück, and the LMU Munich. Her articles on Iranian modernism have been published in academic journals, including, kritische berichte, Stedelijk Studies, and Artl@as Bulletin.
She studied Art History, History and Culture of the Middle East and Modern German Literature at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. In 2021, Katrin Nahidi received her doctorate from Freie Universität Berlin with the thesis Modernism Revisited - Exhibitions, Cultural Politics, and Modernist Art Production in Iran. Her dissertation was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation as part of the Sinergia project Other Modernities - Practices and Patrimony of Visual Expression Outside the West at the University of Bern and Freie Universität Berlin (2013-2017).
In 2023, she published her monograph entitled The Cultural Politics of Art in Iran: Modernism, Exhibitions, and Art Production by Cambridge University Press. This publication shows that modern Iranian art represents a diverse field of cultural production that critically reflects questions of Iranian modernity and modernization. Postcolonial theory as a methodological key helps to deconstruct imperial concepts of modernity in order to decolonize Iranian art history.
Katrin Nahidi's research interests lie in global art, historiography of modern art, non-Western modern and contemporary art production, art theory from the global South and postcolonial art history.
Please join us on Zoom for the third and final event of this series on Friday, April 19, at 9am PST.
To register for this Zoom event, please use this link.
April 15, 2024 - 11:25am