Articulating the Textual Narrative Mode in the Multimodal Discourse of Contemporary Iranian Painting

 
 
Based on the achievements of visual narratologists, it is no secret that stories and narratives are not only reserved for time-oriented arts, including literature, but images can also find narrative features. Of course, there are different viewpoints on how to narrate the image or images, all of which go back to the theorists' definitions of the concept of narration. Visual narratologists believe that all arts, including painting, can be narrators. This group of thinkers define visual narrative in the function of the image and in the presentation of the narrative and its various forms of transmission. One of the methods of presenting the narrative is to combine the semiotic resources of language and image in the form of a new artistic text which can create a narrative and in other words a multimodal discourse consisting of language and image in the artwork itself or in its paratextual situation such as the name of the works or the name of the show, and also its statement.
The addition of linguistic and narrative elements in postmodern art, where linguistics is placed instead of epistemology, becomes one of its most important features. The fence that was tried to be built between language and image in modern art, destroyed in contemporary art and the interaction of these two has led to the formation of an inter relationship and a multimodal linguistic and visual discourse finally. In other words, modern narrative avoidance or de-narrative gives way to the return of narrative to the field of arts in different forms. Narrative in contemporary visual arts can be defined in different ways: From the incorporation of a recognizable and straightforward subject that modern art was fighting with, to the narrative as material to do the work. Even the act of creating a work of art itself can be a narrative act. In this paper, only one of the types, the use of written language in contemporary art and how it works, is considered.
The purpose of the upcoming article is to answer the question, what is the role and function of the narrative element of the linguistic mode in the articulation of the multimodal linguistic/visual discourse of contemporary art, including contemporary Iranian painting? And how is this articulation done? It seems that the use of this method has increased in recent years in Iranian contemporary art.
At first, concepts of Laclau and Mouffe's thought that help to answer the question of this article are described. And with a brief mention of how to use the narrative aspect of language in the art of the 40s to the present decade, the targeted sample of the article (That is, solo of painting exhibitions the middle of 1385-1395 in Azad Gallery) is analyzed quantitatively. This gallery is selected because on the one hand, it is one of the effective galleries in shaping and expanding the art flow and on the other hand, it has uploaded a relatively complete archive (including exhibition statements) compared to other websites of galleries with the same lifespan.
 
Iran's contemporary art, which has been devided into official art and approved by the country's cultural and artistic observers and unofficial art, since the 70s, has been looking for new ways of expression and adopting unique views and in many cases critical of current affairs. One of these methods is the use of a language policy that challenges the separation of image and language in various ways.  And it shows this fact even more that image has an inseparable relationship with language and requires multimodal interaction. We see the increasing growth of this policy in language forms in the structure of the work itself or paratext by studying a quantitative research sample. The title of the works and the show and exhibition statements are part of these linguistic paratexts.
As mentioned, Form and motif of writing material as one of the signs and discursive dimensions of Saqqakhaneh, was consolidation in its discourse articulation. Since the 70s, different artistic realms other than painting, such as sculpture, handicrafts, jewelry, clothing design, interior design, etc., have tried to stabilize the linguistic floating signifier. In most of these cases, writing has no meaningful function, such as the Saqqakhaneh painting. Therefore, language as symbolic and not aesthetic sign,
since language as symbolic and not aesthetic signs was not yet articulated in the discourse of contemporary art, was considered a discourse element. Gradually, by adding the symbolic function of language to it, it was considered a discourse moment.
Based on the results obtained from a quantitative study on individual painting exhibitions in Azad art Gallery as a case study, it can be concluded that not only the text connected with the work but also detached from it, has gradually found a dynamic relationship with other painting components as a relatively main component; become one of the nodal points of painting discourse and contemporary painting shows. And it has pushed them from a mono-modal discourse, i.e. image, to a multi-modal discourse (here, both visual and linguistic aspects). The relationship between these two components during contemporary Iranian painting and how they are articulated has also changed and as a result, it has also affected this discourse. As seen, at the beginning of the decade under study, written signs were elements that had not yet been articulated and established in the discourse of painting. But from the middle of this decade, writing became a fundamental dimension of painting discourse as far as we can call it the painting multi-modal discourse.
By visual study of works and shows based on language policies, We come to the conclusion that linguistic and written text, rather than following its previous traditions such as new traditionalism, Saqqakhaneh school and new calligraphy, follows the relations of contemporary art. Above and beyond the formal and aesthetic aspect of the writing, its semantic and content aspects are important in harmony with the prevailing atmosphere of the art of this period. Many artists have used language as a symbolic and conceptual thing, in other words, narrative and not aesthetic in their works. Writing elements with a range of approaches are always seen in their work. Part of the creators of the multimodal discourse have preserved the aesthetic quality and the visual aspect of the language in addition to its symbolic aspect, especially in the case of the language connected with the work. Some of these works, like conceptual art, are not only self-referential, but refer to history, culture, politics, gender, etc. and they can find new expressive and significant functions such as parody, satire, irony and humor, etc. In this way, the mono-modal discourse becomes a multimodal discourse - here, image and language and the audience is also facing this discourse, and decoding the works will have no choice but to see or read multimodal interaction.