The Art of the Martyrs: The Taziyeh and Street Art in Contemporary Tehran

Abstract

The Taziyeh’s best known form in Iran is the passion play mourning the death of Imam Hussein and his sons at the historic battle of Karbala. This particular Taziyeh is an important expression of Shia Islam. Today, its performance is closely scrutinized and often controlled or censored by the Islamic government. At the same time, it is upheld as an object of patriotic pride and religious commitment, encouraging participants to interpret the events of the battle of Karbala as historically and religiously parallel to the events of the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. In this way, the soldiers who died in these contemporary wars are celebrated as the martyrs who gave their lives at the battle of Karbala. Less known is the way that the aesthetics of the Taziyeh performances have influenced another major form of artistic expression in Iran: street art, which includes thoughtfully executed murals as well as quick stencillings and graffiti-like wall paintings. Like the Taziyeh, such works are also both censored as well as sanctioned by the government, depending on the political or revolutionary sentiment the painting is perceived to express, which has created an underground movement of non-sanctioned street artists who work covertly, whilst government-supported artists cover the walls of cities like Tehran with approved images, often of Hussein and his martyrs.  But the non-sanctioned artists emerge as the “martyrs” in this situation, risking life and livelihood with their revolutionary art in resistance to the current Islamic regime. By analyzing the images of the “art of the martyrs” in contemporary Tehran, this article argues that both the underground and sanctioned street art can be more fully understood through the history of Taziyeh performance in Iran, and the way that the public reads such imagery with faithful and political eyes.