Car Flirting and Morality Cruising: Neurotic Gazes and Paranoid Glances in Contemporary Iranian Art

Iran’s public sphere has been segregated along gender lines since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and is regularly policed by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. This article considers the ways in which the resulting homosocial spaces appear in the works of contemporary artists working in Tehran. Looking at video and photographic works by three Iranian artists, I argue that contemporary art is hyper aware of being under surveillance and addresses itself to multiple viewers. I bring queer viewing strategies as a method of viewing these artworks in order to point to the continuum between homosocial and homoerotic spaces that permeate contemporary Iranian art.