Seyed Abdolreza Hosseini

Seyed Abdolreza Hosseini is a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Vienna, specializing in the material and social dimensions of visual/written culture in Iran. With a keen focus on the sociology of knowledge, the history of art/artifacts, and the anthropology of technique, he conducts fieldwork that bridges these interconnected disciplines. His work is informed by a decade of sociological background and experience in Iran and interrogates how artistic practices mediate between art practices, creativity, and sociotechnical relations, blending archival analysis with ethnographic engagement in workshops.

Research interests:

Sociology & Social History of Knowledge and Art;

Written/Visual Culture in Islamic Periods;

Individuality, Creativity, and Social Power;

Anthropology of Technique and Technology;

Current research project: Gardtebardari: Practices and Concepts of Pounces in Persian Art

This project examines gardtebardāri (pounce technique) not merely as a mechanical process, but as a vital site where material practice, social structures, and aesthetic philosophy converge. By interrogating how this overlooked technique mediates between repetition and innovation, the study challenges entrenched binaries that privilege originality over replication in art historical discourse. At its core, this research asks: What if the very act of copying—so often dismissed as derivative—actually constitutes a sophisticated language of artistic agency? How might the humble pounce paper reveal alternative epistemologies of creativity that have been marginalized by dominant art historical narratives? Through close analysis of workshop practices, archival traces, and embodied knowledge, the project seeks to recover what these material processes can teach us about the social life of art in Iran.

The theoretical framework walks an intriguing tightrope between disciplines: Could gardtebardāri be understood simultaneously as a social institution that structures visual culture, a habitus that disciplines the hand yet liberates the imagination, and an actant in Latourian terms that actively shapes artistic outcomes? This conceptual triangulation informs a methodology equally comfortable examining the microscopic perforations in centuries-old pounce papers as it is parsing the lived experiences of contemporary practitioners. The research draws on neglected Persian art treatises not just as historical documents, but as theoretical texts that speak back to contemporary debates about materiality and making. In doing so, it asks whether our very definitions of "technology" might need rethinking when applied to non-Western contexts.

By centering gardtebardāri as both subject and method, this project aspires to trouble several comfortable assumptions in art history: What if innovation has been looking in the wrong places all along? Might the repetitive, the copied, and the technical contain their own radical possibilities for rethinking artistic agency? The study's significance lies not just in recovering a marginalized practice, but in using it to propose alternative frameworks for understanding art's relationship to social power—frameworks that might resonate far beyond Persian contexts. In an academic climate increasingly concerned with decolonizing methodologies, this work suggests that the answers may lie not only in what we study, but in how we attend to the quiet, persistent wisdom of materials and making.

Publications

Hosseini, S. A. (2024). Musavadeh: Historical Sociology of Writing in Iran. Tehran: Farhangestan Honar.
Hosseini, S. A. & Zokaei, M. S. (2021). I’jam and the Development of Islamic Khatatti. Journal of Art and Civilization of the Orient, 9(33), 37–48.
Hosseini, S. A. (2024). Social Status and Scribal Culture in Islamic Divan: Edition of Risāle Haft Żabīṭe-ʼi ʿAlī Naqī Munshī (Treatise on Seven Principles of Ali Naqi the Scribe). Payam Baharestan, 37(15), 245–271.