Is it possible to re-think the idea of art space, as we know it in its common practical and institutional realm, through considering in turn the very particularity of circumstances that define the practice and discourses of art in a place? This was the general motivation for Pages to initiate a discussion with artists Barbad Golshiri and Shahab Fotouhi, and social-cultural researcher Hamed Yousefi. The conversation took place in the spring of 2007 in Tehran.

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Pages(P): We’d like to begin our talk on the general theme of the present issue, the space of art. Our perception of this space could be very extensive: It could be an exhibition, a magazine, an art work, or even a discursive space. So, perhaps we should ask: In the present situation and conditions in Iran, in what places and times could such a discursive space of art be found?

Hamed Yousefi(HY): This question presents us with the twofold issue of the public and private domain. Over the last twenty-odd years we have had the experience that the public domain does not belong to us. In a 10 to15-year period, intellectuals and artists of the preceding generation were quite disinterested in the public domain and totally denied it because its tendencies and ideals had nothing to do with their own (except for a group of classical leftist intellectuals who have still focused on the working class and the like, and to whom the masses were important.) After those 10-15 years, in the 1990s and 2000s, there is a kind of desperation and negative reaction to the masses and their beliefs. That is, if in the 1980s everybody ignored the public, today some take an opposing position. That’s because it is tiresome to see that the public spaces are closed either by the government or by the custom for so much of the time. But the interesting point is that the private domain plays the role of public space for us now. We have private domains that we share with others and convert them into public spaces with controlled access. Such spaces are mobile or open door private domains. The spaces of some galleries are in fact private, and it is hoped that only a few people will enter them.

This strategy creates a space for us that could somehow be described by the term circle. I think whatever artistic dialogues and creations we have had in recent years have been somehow related to these circles. We use the term circle here but circle, coterie, etc, have all one foot in the universities, in the public spaces, and this is not consistent with the features of these circles.

Barbad Golshiri (BG): To what extent do you consider this issue peculiar to Iran? In Russia, for example, the Bakhtin circle was acting in the same way. The collective activities of Medvedev, Voloshinov and Bakhtin – with their severe criticism of the early years of the formation of the USSR – had forced them out of the public domain. Their works were read, for example, in France, but they were hardly known in Russia. We can compare this with many works that are not presented in Iran. What is more striking in Iran than in other countries, at least as far as I have seen, is the division of the spaces of the exhibitions to inside and outside of Iran...

HY: By circle, I mean a space the place of which is not visible to all. At present, we have two Tehrans. One is what we can look at from above, as if from a helicopter, with its plan drawn by the state. But this plan also has lanes and by-lanes that we can only find when we take a tour on foot. And this is the other Tehran.

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Reprint: Architect magazine, Architect Magazine, Issue 1, p 29, 1946

As in other fields of social life, we have witnessed significant developments in the interior decoration of the houses. The difficult and interlaced embellishments of stuccowork and frame making characteristic of previous days are no longer customary. Beauty in decoration is more sought in logic and simplicity. The two pictures here show the interior decorations of a house in Tehran designed and carried out by the architect Mr. Budaghian.