A Critical Approach to the Intertextual Reading of Contemporary Iranian Art

With regard to contemporary art, we find that the desire for the singularity and uniqueness of the artworks and the emphasis on its originality has prevailed in the space of critique and analysis of the works (or at least in its most important forms and approaches), which indicates a kind of inner perplexity towards understanding kinship of the works and preventing the development of the intertextual domain. But by referring to the intertextual process, it is possible to formulate a design that is both autonomous, and heterogeneous. Intertextuality owes its formation to the term that Kristeva used for any kind of connection between texts, which provided the ground and opportunity for receiving and transmitting the concepts of the mental worlds (author and audiences) and created a background for the continuous action, event and movement of the minds towards each other, and too from the artist’s professional subconscious to the objects (to represent the work as a text). In this research, we have tried to open a window to understanding and reading works by recognizing the intertextual process. Also, relying on Edward Saeed’s “traveling” theory, we have viewed the use of the intertextual process as a method for art criticism in the contemporary context of Iran from a critical perspective. This study is a qualitative research, which explains the view, that art as a text, is a space for the representation of the interrelationships and interactions between texts (past and even later texts). In this process, the connection between the texts (works) once again puts the former real work in a cover of mysteries and codes, and as the new work moves away from approaching and similarity (imitation) of other’s works, along with the negation of the conventional form of the objects and the previous works, it highlights a kind of kinship and connection between the texts (works).