Following the earlier chapters addressing discourses on art practices in Iran and the socio-political mechanisms (both domestic and global) which tend to impose cultural fixity or political proscriptions, in this chapter I examine strategies deployed by artists connected to Iran – living either in or outside the country – against those forces, particularly through the language of humour, irony and satire. I will argue that deploying irony and addressing contradictions via humorous subversion of cultural expectations and standardisation are the key strategies in artistic practices in Iran. Here art acts as agency criticising the status quo, self-exoticisation or categories constructed only on foreign values or formulation by domestic authori-ties. Facing censorship and political constraints, in order to convey their critical account, contemporary artists of Iran – particularly those living in the country – often apply the language of humour through parodic forms and concepts. For artists residing in Iran, parody serves a normative critical function specifically when certain contemporary art forms allow artists to offer parodic references to art of the past. This critical approach takes on yet another dimension when it is aimed at clichéd collective memories by means of humorous commentary on cultural standards. At times, this humorous critique is taken from national or regional specificities – often depicted through stereotypical forms or subjects – to address the artist's dissatisfaction with formulations constructed by local political forces or the metropolitan art system.

Contextualisation

It would be no overstatement to say that, akin to other non-Euro-American artists today, contemporary artists from Iran who wish to participate in the global art scene typically have to challenge reception and expectation vis-à-vis the ‘global’ art system. Moreover, at times these artists have to face the challenge of meeting standards formulated by domestic authorities, in accordance with the state's cultural-political agendas and values. Both the global and local mechanisms tend to frame essentialised cultural views. While the global system produces inert images of regionality and encourages standardisation, the local states chiefly establish political proscriptions. What they share is a reductive reading of artworks that commonly diminishes them to geopolitical objects.

The practice of critical reference to the cultural past associated with political implications is the artistic response to the state's standardised paradigms and norms for cultural activities in post-revolutionary Iran.