Project

Karnameh: Visual Culture of Iranian Children 1950–1980 is the title of the exhibition held in the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art from May 25 to August 15, 2016 curated by Ali Bakhtiari, Peyman Pourhossein, and Yashar Samimi Mofakham. Displaying more than two thousand visual documents in addition to publishing them in the form of a book, the exhibition portrays the process of growth, increasing importance and influence of sociopolitical affairs on visual products, cultural material, and general taste of Iranian children in the period between two major landmarks in Iran’s contemporary history — the 1953 Iranian Coup d’état and the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution (the outset of the Iran-Iraq War) in the late 1970s. 
People who visit Karnameh are faced with a historical-narrative arrangement that begins with the first visual attempts after the Coup, becomes serious with the achievements of the first educated generation, depicts the Cold War’s impact with the extensive introduction of Western and Eastern cultures through elements such as Walt Disney products, Franklin Book Program from the United States, and Progress Publishers from Soviet Union. Its substantive, national aspects are reinforced with the establishment of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (known as Kanoon) and the tendency of many Iranian organizations towards producing children’s products. Finally, the rise of religious ideological mentality –along with other collective movements in the country and the victory of the Islamic Revolution– expands its religious and revolutionary products.
The documents displayed in Karnameh contain loads of visual images and products in accordance with the aesthetics and design principles of their own time, yet with different qualities. For example, works that are reproductions of foreign products or images based on Western academic knowledge or empirical observation of the world’s products for children. However, among all of these visual products created or recreated based on the world’s common and critical tendencies, the works of two groups of artists might be considered more “Iranian” than most other of the three decades under review in this exhibition.
The first group includes the works of artists whose visual knowledge is based on foreign academic aesthetics, information, and possibilities. After mastering the design principles, these artists attempted to make use of native visual culture and traditions. This is how they sought methods of non-Western, original, unfamiliar, or “Iranian” graphical creation, illustration, and animation. However, people belonging to this approach can hardly be found before the mid-1960s.
Although non-Iranian, Fredrick Talberg is considered the first designer on the first group’s list, due to bearing non-Iranian design knowledge and extensively using Iranian visual resources in his illustrations (which were simultaneous with the nationalization policies of Reza Shah). His appearance on top of the list is particularly because of his use of illuminated frames and margins in arranging the layout of pictures and text in his books.
Nosratollah Karimi is also on the first group’s list. His experience in design dates back to his studies in Europe, whereas his extremely vast knowledge of Iranian literary and visual culture is rooted in his familiarity with Tehran’s theaters and visual culture dominating them. The few graphic products remaining from Karimi clearly depict his effort in using folk visual and literary culture and mixing it with Iran’s art periods.
Apart from the two mentioned figures, the majority of the members on this list are artists that have once worked in Kanoon. Now, many years after Kanoon’s golden age, these attempts and their success or failure can be traced in the remaining works of those years.
Numerous people with great experiences belong to this group, but perhaps the most significant and uninterrupted experiences belong to Farshid Mesghali who used his skills and studies to create pictures with mixed aesthetics of Eastern Europe and Iranian visual resources and to shape a new and personal visual, writing, and composition space. Perhaps the most personal works with these characteristics are the picture collection entitled Legend of Iranian Creation and the covers of his music records.
The illustrations and animations of Ali Akbar Sadeghi and Noureddin Zarrinkelk also belong to this group. Their works have an Iranian air because they use traditional Iranian illustration methods—such as Persian miniature or lithography—and study the principles and criteria of the Qajar art era and before. They employ familiar composition, numerous decorations, calligraphy and drawing into the book-making and illumination traditions.
On the other hand, the second group represents attempts that don’t generally rely on the world’s present knowledge and are stemmed from local Iranian aesthetic principles. These works are a long way from gaining prestige because of the nature of publication and the key economic priorities in production and distribution of these works. Easy, comprehensible—usually narrative pictures and tableaus with familiar implications in their storylines—which bear the hallmark of “commercial books” during and after their production, are an answer to needs of common people in society. Thus, they are published and sold in large numbers. More importantly, they have a pivotal role in forming society’s visual taste. Undoubtedly, many of the works belonging to this group are never taken seriously despite mass circulation and sales due to the nature of routine production and consumption. They are mostly left out of archives and collections, and have barely been studied.

The covers designed by Mohammad Tajvidi are among the works belonging to this group. These illustrations are based on Iranian miniature, particularly the miniatures of the school of Tehran, with an eye to the works of other painters and illustrators through the world. However a simplified design and implementation is seen (in part due to printing limitations). This illustration style still takes up a large portion of the consumer and decorative aspects of Iranian life –illustrations printed on melamine plates, wall calendars, marquetry pictures, carpets, etc.
The second group also contains the illustrations of religious books by Sadegh Sandoghi. These works portray numerous religious stories with many deformations inevitably illustrating religious people with a realistic approach. This approach was particularly fortunate since the Islamic Revolution distanced children and youth products from fantasies and imagination that was common prior to it. Hence, this illustration style that was once merely used in religious literature became an appropriate, comprehensible, and credible model. Its strong presence in schoolbooks in the 1980s and 1990s formed the image of that period in history.
Another significant figure on the list of the second group is Jafar Tejaratchi. His unique style of telling Iranian stories is based on illustration with textboxes as a form of narration. He often uses native compositions and mixes these familiar elements with Walt Disney’s famous characters, particularly Mickey Mouse. Although it seems very commonplace and basic, the large circulation of Tejaratchi’s books reveals the dominant position of such productions in the consumption market. Such approach could be considered a successor to the naïve, primary lithographic illustrations followed by books and magazines such as Moosh va Gorbeh at the turn of the century or the old Eydisazi pictures, although all these resources were reviewed and reproduced by the first group.
There is no doubt that Karnameh is incapable of displaying all productions of three decades under consideration, and it has not made such a claim. However, let us consider the documents presented in this exhibition as a logical sample of children’s production in a period of contemporary Iranian history. Tt is evident that all efforts towards production or reproduction of Iranian culture through pictures and illustrations for children and young adults have had a small impact in forming or changing children’s general taste in making it more Iranian. This is due to the influence of the media presenting them, the connection they have established with their audience, their circulation and sales rates, and most importantly, their inability to confront the powerful invasion of non-Iranian audiovisual productions. This is a sad truth that has remained unchanged throughout the years.