IN-PERSON London Heritages. Section A

Abstract

The 1990s in Iran began with the events of 1989 when the 8-year war ended, and the attitude of “death for the ideal” was replaced by “the ideal of life.” Iranian photography entered the 1990s while the heavy shadow of social commitment from the two great events of the 1978 revolution and the war in the 1980s had caused it to use its capacities more to serve the representation of social suffering and injustice. In the 1990s, the formalist perspective on photography, emphasizing its status as a visual art, grew increasingly influential, and we witness a trend towards formalism that was manifested in the play of light and shadows and unusual angles. This period witnessed a significant shift, marked by the emergence of photographers exploring new genres such as staged photography, self-portraiture, and urban spaces and architecture. In the field of urban spaces and architecture, photographers emerged who used urban spaces and architecture, from modern and ancient architecture to streets and subways, as their subject. Along with these developments, we can trace the fourth annual exhibition, held in 1991 with an emphasis on formalism in urban spaces and architecture where we witness the initial efforts of photographers to utilize layout, staging, and combining images through montage. 1990s were also a decade of transition, bringing with it the confrontation between tradition and modernity, and even at its end, traces of postmodernism can be seen. During this period, architecture, urban spaces, and culture became subjects for photographers to show this confrontation. In this article, we intend to comprehensively examine the developments in photography in the 1990s in Iran, especially in the field of architecture and urban spaces in the light of cultural, political, and artistic developments, and to examine the works of recognized photographers of this decade, including Mehran Mohajer, Mohammad Yazdipour, Mohammad Ghazali, Shadi Ghadirian, and Nasrollah Kasraian.