Peripherality and Humor in the Iranian Art Film

This paper examines a range of post-revolutionary Iranian art films, mostly those watched primarily outside the country via festival screenings, in the context of the relationship between the tropes of peripherality and humor. It argues for the significance and complexity of both terms in the context of this cinema and of the global image of Iran and its peoples. Having examined a kind of humor based on the geographic periphery, specifically derived from relationships between technology, car, and camera, it concludes by reflecting on the advent of new technologies, and social constraints and opportunities in the Iranian art cinema today.     

吉林大学考古与艺术博物馆藏瓷选介

吉林大学考古与艺术博物馆藏瓷800余件,均入藏于20世纪60年代之前,其中部分明清时期青花瓷[1]与彩瓷[2]已做过介绍,本文新选介的10件藏瓷,时代涵盖唐、宋、元、明、清,对于中国古陶瓷研究具有一定参考意义。1.唐代黑釉剪纸漏花执壶(藏品编号1-356)杯式口内敛,圆唇,束颈短粗,鼓肩,长腹,平底,条形把手上附泥条,颈肩部另附双条形系,管状流粗短。     

Future plans for Art and Archaeology Technical Abstracts (AATA)

Abstract

One of the principal resources for conservation research for many years has been the Art and Archaeology Technical Abstracts, originally produced by the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (1IC), and more recently jointly published by the IIC and the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI). The following note on future plans for AATA is reproduced with permission from the IIC's Bulletin (no. 5; October1999).     

Mythological Themes in Iranian Culture and Art: Traditional and Contemporary Perspectives

In Iran, ancient mythical elements are very much alive in the present as a part of the fabric of ordinary people's lives and worldview. This paper explores the relationship between culture, myth, and artistic production in contemporary Iran, using the specific examples of symbols and mythological themes evoked in the work of painter/writer Aydin Aghdashloo and photographer/video artist Shirin Neshat. The paintings of Aghdashloo, in which he deliberately damages beautifully-executed classical style Persian miniatures, convey a sense that the angelic forces have failed and that the world is succumbing to the destructive and degenerative activities of the demonic. The photographs, videos and installations of Neshat likewise draw heavily on cultic forms inherited from ancient Iranian tradition. It is important to note that in none of these cases does the artist use mythological themes and symbols to express their original cultural meaning; rather, they appropriate well-known elements of ancient Iranian culture and imbue them with new meanings relevant to contemporary issues and understandings. What these examples do illustrate is the persistent resonance of ancient Iranian culture among Iranians up to the present day. Iranian artists have demonstrated the effectiveness of evoking their target audience's deep sense of cultural identity to convey contemporary messages using ancient cultural concepts, sometimes on a subconscious level.     

A Review of the International Academic Symposium on Tibetan Archaeology and Art

To date at least two aspects of Tibetan studies have become prominent. One is Tibetan archaeology which has grown from a base of ever-enriching fieldwork, and the other is Tibetan art studies which is dominated by Tibetan Buddhist art. In western humanity disciplines,archaeology and art history have always been regarded     

Contemporary Iranian Art: The Emergence of New Artistic Discourses1

This article deals with the emerging discourses and concerns that have dominated the Iranian art community mainly since 1997. It discusses the existing, or rather conflicting, views of the current situation of the visual arts in Iran as expressed in recent artistic events, productions, and exhibitions as well as in critical reviews.² It does not fully discuss the variety of artistic genres in Iran, but examines the dominant ideas from the main opposing factions of cultural and artistic thought. It also aims at identifying the structural changes in Iranian art as well as the prevailing artistic policy of recent years.     

Digital Management of Rock Art: the African Archaeology Archive Cologne (AAArC)

Archaeology is a costly and object-affine practice requiring sophisticated technical equipment, and therefore is largely initiated and run from industrialised countries. Accordingly, also data and objects are largely lodged in these countries. In rock art, this leads to the paradoxical situation that many motifs and sites with outstanding prehistoric art are better known and more often shown in northern hemisphere urban centres than in the global south rural areas where the art in fact is found. This paper will focus on the possibilities and benefits of a digital archive in making pictures, data and other archaeological source material accessible anytime from everywhere. An open online archive will in the long run flatten the hierarchical order of access to the results of archaeological research and heritage archiving. Today, this is still concentrated in the western metropoles and rarest in African hinterlands. The open access to thousands of pictures will facilitate dissemination of motifs in particular since the distribution of smartphones and network coverage are ever growing particularly in Africa’s rural areas. The African Archaeology Archive Cologne (AAArC), being licenced under Creative Commons, provides open access to tens of thousands of rock art photos and to the enormous Brandberg-Daureb Data Base that contains 39,000+ rock art figures. Additionally AAArC stores all kinds of digital archaeological products from across Africa (mainly Sudan, Algeria, Chad and Namibia), including audio and film documentary.     

Maroon Archaeology Is Public Archaeology

Researchers of the contemporary past have sought to be instrumental in public dialogue about how artifacts speak to heritage matters relevant to living communities and decision-making polities (Emberling and Hanson, Catastophe!: the looting and destruction of Iraq’s past, 2008; Gibbon, Who owns the past?: cultural policy, cultural property, and the law, 2005; Mullins, Places in mind: public archaeology as applied anthropology, 2004; Renfrew, Loot, legitimacy and ownership: the ethical crisis in archaeology, 2000; Skeates, Debating the archaeological heritage, 2000). This approach has made archaeology a public endeavor that serves the needs of inquisitive researchers, as well as those groups of individuals whose lives may be directly affected by the excavation, analysis, and interpretation of archaeological remains. This paper will broadly assess how the archaeology of Maroons—tribal communities of runaway slave descendants—has affected the application of scholarly research in the former Dutch territory of Suriname, SA. The shift in relevance is due to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights 2007 judgment that allows Suriname Maroons to assert decision-making authority on matters of land management and development in ancestral and contemporary habitat. Vital to this endeavor is, Maroon involvement in archaeological research and more importantly, an overhaul in Surinamese antiquity laws.     

Karel R. van Kooij (ed.), ABIA South and Southeast Asian Art and Archaeology Index

Indo-Iranian Journal -     

考古学与性别

本文节译自英国杜伦大学(DurhamUniversity)考古学教授马太·约翰逊(MatthewJohnson)1999年出版的《考古学理论:导言》(ArchaeologicalTheory:AnIntroduction)一书的第八章“考古学与性别”(“ArchaeologyandGender”)。本章节通过对其中几个最流行主题的归纳综述了近二十年来性别考古学的概况,并且介绍了一例典型个案,最后还以答问形式阐述了作者本人对此领域较混淆的若干问题的看法。     

Language and Archaeology

The increase in the number of publications per year is connected to a decrease in their geographical scope and hence in the number and diversity of the international references. The nature of communication is thus decidedly influenced by language communities and their size, and in Europe has given rise to distinct traditions. My personal feeling is that these have enriched our discipline immensely.

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Resumen El aumento en el número de publicaciones anuales está conectado con la disminución de su cubrimiento geográfico y, por lo tanto, con la cantidad y diversidad de las referencias internacionales. La naturaleza de la comunicación está entonces, indudablemente, influenciada por las comunidades linguísticas y sus dimensiones que han producido tradiciones distintas en Europa. Creo que estas tradiciones han enriquecido nuestra disciplinas inmensamente.

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Résumé L’augmentation du nombre de publications par année est liée à la diminution de la portée géographique et par conséquence du nombre et de la diversité des références internationales. La nature des communications est donc indubitablement influencée par les communautés linguistiques et leurs dimensions, ce qui a produit des traditions distinctes en Europe. Mon impression personnel est que cela à grandement enrichie notre discipline.