Beyond History explores the post-history landscape. It is the final part in the Crisis of History series, where artists examine the crisis provoked in the world by the imposition of the End of History. Whereas the first two installments of this series examined the abandoned ideals of modernism and the strategies of resistance deployed by artists to counter the current ideological stagnation, the last exhibition takes as its departure point the crumbling of the great historical narrative, and is guided by the question: how can we deal with the past, present and future outside the normative framework offered by history?
Artists in Iran must already deal with two great historical narratives, those followed by the West and their own government – either of which, in their eyes, offer little comfort in the present or hope for the future. As a result many of them investigate absence as a discursive strategy, or they develop uncertain micro-narratives that draw history to question, distinguishing between issues and their representations: for example, the past vs history.
On the other side of the Persian Gulf, Arabian artists are discovering a rich pre-Islamic history which is being hidden from them for reasons of religious ideology and political convenience. What if they could reconnect to that history?
And what if history was being rewritten right now, in areas outside the media’s attention field? All these possibilities, for a history beyond the History, are examined in this exhibition with 15 artists.
Image may be NSFW.
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