Hamed Yousefi
- Associate Professor of Art History
Biography
Hamed Yousefi is an art historian and filmmaker specializing in the history of modern and contemporary art. His work particularly focuses on the intersection of modern art and Islamic thought. At Oberlin, he teaches courses on Islamic art, modern and contemporary art of the Middle East, history and theories of modernism, and intellectual histories of Islam.
His research questions disciplinary separations between modern and Islamic art and argues that Islamic and modern art developed in dialogue with one another, charting linked and interdependent paths. He is especially interested in affordances of Islamic image theories, notably the concept of “creative imagination” (khayal), for theorizations of modern art.
Yousefi is currently working on two book manuscripts that explore Iranian art before the country’s two major revolutions. How Modern Art Became Islamic is envisaged as a counter-monograph of the constitutionalist activist and court painter Muhammad Ghaffari Kamal al-Mulk (c. 1863–1940). It examines theological debates about photography in late 19th-century Iran and traces the visual and political receptions of those debates in paintings produced by Kaml al-Mulk in the years leading to the 1906 Constitutional Revolution. The second book, 1963: A Year in the Life of God, explores modern refashionings of Islamic image theories in two concurrent movements before the 1979 Islamic Revolution—the Saqqakhaneh art movement and the project of Islamic governance by Ayatollah Khomeini.
As a filmmaker, Yousefi has produced numerous documentary and essay films, including a four-episode series on aesthetic histories of political Islam in Iran. His art-critical writings have appeared in various magazines and exhibition catalogs including e-flux and publications by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MAXXI (Rome).
Yousefi received his PhD in Art History from Northwestern University, with a certificate from the Middle Eastern and North African Studies Program. Prior to that, he received an MA in Aesthetics and Art Theory from the Center for Research in Modern European Philosophy in London.
Fall 2026
Approaches to Islamic Art — ARTH 158
Modern and Contemporary Art of the Middle East — ARTH 240
Spring 2027
Approaches to Islamic Art — ARTH 158
Image and Imagination in Islam — ARTH 340
Journal Articles
“The Race for Appropriation: Blackness, Authorship, and Ligon on Mapplethorpe,” October 183 (Winter 2023): 50–74.
“History or Project: The Double Life of Islamic Art Since the 1970s,” Regards: la revue des arts du spectacle 28 (2022): 123–136.
Book Chapters
“Freedom Without Citizenship: Ayatollah Khomeini’s Response to the Crisis of the Modern Self in Iran,” Cambridge History of Modern Iranian Political Thought, eds. A. Mirsepassi, B. Mousavi, B. Plungis, and G. Rekabralaei (Cambridge University Press), forthcoming.
“Between Illusion and Aspiration: Morteza Avini's Cinema and Theory of Global Revolution,” Global 1979: Geographies and Histories of the Iran Revolution, eds. Ali Mirsepassi and Arang Keshavarzian (Cambridge University Press, 2021): 357–388.
“Provincialism Perfected: Global Contemporary Art and Uneven Development” (with David Hodge), Supercommunity, eds. Julieta Arenda, Brian Kuan-Wood, and Anton Vidokle (Verso, 2017).
Edited Volume
Siah Armajani: Critical Essays and Interviews. Co-Edited with David Hodge. Translated by Shervin Shahamipour. Tehran: Bon-gah, 2020; co-author of “Editors' Preface” (pp. 7–10) and author of “Profane and Class-Conscious Illuminations” (pp. 124–156). [in Persian]
Magazine Articles and Catalogue Essays
“Four Yektais,” in Manoucher Yektai: Beginnings, Exhibition Catalogue, ed. Negar Azimi, (Karma Gallery, 2025), 10–24.
“Abby Weed Grey’s Journey to The East: Iranian Modernity During the Cold War” (with Ali Mirsepassi), in Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection, ed. Lynn Gumpert (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2019): 64–77.
“Profane Illuminations: The Early Works,” in Siah Armajani: Follow This Line, eds. Clare Davies and Victoria Song (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2018) 52–67.
“ART+ART: The Avant-Garde in the Streets,” e-flux Journal, 82, May 2017.
“Provincialism Perfected: Global Contemporary Art and Uneven Development” (with David Hodge), e-flux Journal, SUPERCOMMUNITY project: 56th Venice Biennale, 20 June 2015.
2025–2028: Klarman Postdoctoral Fellowship, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
2024–2025: Ittleson Predoctoral Dissertation Fellowship, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art.
2024–2025: The Dedalus Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, New York.
“The Impersonal Feminism of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian,” Department of the Arts, Culture, and Media, Rutgers University, April 16, 2026.
“Modern Art and Islamic Craft in the Work of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian,” Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, March 17, 2026.
“How Modern Art Became Islamic: Muhammad Ghaffari Kamāl al-Mulk’s Revolution in Painting,” The Pulse of Art History Lecture Series, Department of the History of Art and Visual Studies, Cornell University, February 23, 2026.
“How Modern Art Became Islamic,” Deforming the Canon: Encounters with the History of Islamic Art, Artifacts, and the Built Environment, Department of the History of Art, University of Pennsylvania, May 5 and 6, 2025.
“From Image-Reality to Reality as Image: Muhammad Ghaffari Kamāl al-Mulk’s Revolution in Painting,” Fourteenth Biennial Iranian Studies Conference, UNAM, Mexico City, August 15, 2024.
“Friendship and Control: The Relationship Between the Artist and the Artisan in the Work of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian,” Friendship: Writing Art Histories in Relation; an ARTMargins Workshop, November 7, 2025.
“Reinventing Islamic Art for the Modern Subject,” Panel: Painting, Performance, and Photography: Transformations in Late-Qajar Iran, The Annual Conference of the Middle Eastern Studies Association (MEAA), Washington DC, November 23, 2025. (also, organizer and chair of the panel).
“How Modern Art Became Islamic,” Deforming the Canon: Encounters with the History of Islamic Art, Artifacts, and the Built Environment, Department of the History of Art, University of Pennsylvania, May 5 and 6, 2025.
“From Image-Reality to Reality as Image: Muhammad Ghaffari Kamāl al-Mulk’s Revolution in Painting,” Fourteenth Biennial Iranian Studies Conference, UNAM, Mexico City, August 15, 2024.
“Neoplatonic Thought and Optical Naturalism,” On Taṣwīr or the Inherently Incomplete Conference, American University, Beirut, May 11, 2024.
“Modern Art in Iran: Religion and Revolution,” Guest lecture in Hist111b: The Iranian Revolution in Global Context, Brandeis University, January 29, 2024.
“Modern Art and the Politics of Spirituality Under Authoritarian Liberalism,” Association for Art History Annual Conference, UCL, London, April 13, 2023.
“Monir: and the Anthropological Unconscious of Iranian Modernism,” 13th Biennial Iranian Studies Conference, Association of Iranian Studies, Salamanca, Spain, August 31, 2022.
“Parviz Tanavoli and the Mystery of Man,” New Approaches to Modern Iranian Art 1950–1979, UC Santa Barbra, May 16, 2022.
‘Erfan and Modern Art in the Pahlavi Era [in Persian,] The University of Chicago Persian Circle, January 20, 2022.
“Modernism in Islamic Art, Modernism as Islamic Art,” 55th MESA Annual Meeting, Middle East Studies Association, December 3, 2021.
“Morteza Avini's Cinema and Theory of Global Revolution,” Global 1979: The Iranian Revolution and the Limits of Global History, Iranian Studies Initiative, NYU, March 15, 2021.
Abdolkarim Soroush: Unknowing and Tolerance, 50 min, Clan Productions & BBC, 2017.
The Fabulous Life and Thought of Ahmad Fardid (with Ali Mirsepassi), 84 min., New York University, 2015.
Reza Baraheni: The Prophet Whose God Had Forsaken Him, 26 min., Clan Productions & BBC, 2015.
The Postwar Dream: Art and Politics in Iran (The 1990s), 27 min., Clan Productions & BBC, 2015.
Ghassem Hajizadeh: Painting After Photography, 27 min., Clan Productions & BBC, 2014.
The Culture Industry of War: Art and Politics in Iran (The 1980s), 27 min., Clan Productions & BBC, 2013.
Reza Abedini: Iranian Design?, 27min., Clan Productions & BBC, 2013.
54th Venice Biennale 2013 (with David Hodge), (in Conversation with Alfredo Jaar, Akram Zataari, Clair Bishop, Jeremy Deller, Jessica Morgan, and Anri Sala), 27 min., Clan Productions & BBC, 2013.
Mohsen Vaziri-Moghaddam: Fear and Flight, 26 min., Clan Productions & BBC, 2013.
Hope of the Hopeless: 53rd Venice Biennale, (in Conversation with Peter Osborne, Yael Bartana, Jacques Ranciere, Boris Groys, and Hassan Khan), 26 min., Clan Productions & BBC, 2011.
Aesthetics of Protest: Art and Politics in Iran (The 2009 Uprising), 26 min., Clan Productions & BBC, 2010.
Art of the Revolution: Art and Politics in Iran (1978-79), 25min., Clan Productions & BBC, 2010.