The Saqqa-khaneh School: Post-Colonialism or Orientalism Perspective?

The Issue: Either Saqqa-khaneh school is a movement which was affected by the post-colonial view? Or does it intensify orientalism hegemony? Or should be found third approach?
Intention and research The purpose of this article is to dispute the two approaches of post-colonial and orientalism in the case of studying Saqqa-khaneh school. Descriptive-Analytic method was applied. The current study proposes is not to confine Saqqa-khaneh on the post-colonial and orientalism views; by considering Iran’s special situation. This article first describes Saqqa-khaneh and related, art movements in Iran, Europe, and the United-States at that time.
Said’s orientalism, as the systematic emerging of post-colonial approach and also the translation of Fanon’s book “The Wretched of the Earth” to Persian both actually were after the Saqqa-khaneh movement formation. In fact, post-colonial theories of Fanon and Said played an important role in the study of contemporary Iranian art; although these theories not only belongs to later Saqqa-khaneh but also these just can be practiced in the other societies which had not similar situation comparable to Iran of the 1960s. It seems the thought of considering Saqqa-khaneh as a post-colonial art movement, itself has been influenced by orientalism view.
Historical studies indicate that Saqqa-khaneh as a post-modern movement was formed at the same time which western’s art movements were born. Yet it claimed to be an Iranian movement. In addition, Iranians, particularly in that period didn’t consider themselves as a colonial society so they required to protest against their situation.
Furthermore, Saqqa-khaneh never aimed to illustrate an exotic object as orientalism concept. Moreover, its environment which affects its name oriented was tied firmly with the Iranian common culture. So ascribing and limiting Saqqa-khaneh to post-colonial discourse probably cause of Orientalism hegemony. As a conclusion, it seems that the analyzing of Saqqa-khaneh commonly was affected by later perspectives, which can be described as throwing critic of the current situation in the past. This movement before to be mature, marginalized. After the 1990s, When Iranian-Islamic viewpoint was common it revived. The authors’ suggestion for the contemporary artist is to consider Saqqa-khaneh’s spiritual background and avoiding to repeat it just in appearance.