Biography
Reza Mirzaei's research centers on transnational modern and contemporary art, with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa. His first book, forthcoming, examines the work of the Iranian painter Bahman Mohassess, arguing that parody and deniable allegory functioned as strategies of political dissent in 1960s Iran and recasting what artistic opposition looked like under authoritarian conditions. His peer-reviewed scholarship appears in ARTMargins and History of Photography, and he has contributed to Smarthistory and Herfeh: Honarmand.
Education
- PhD, History of Art & Architecture, UC Santa Barbara
- MFA, Fine Arts, University of Pennsylvania
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles
- "Accounting Difference: Institutional Avant-Gardism and Class Representation in Mir Seid Ali's Photographic Archive." History of Photography 48, no. 4 (2025): 303–320.
- "Equestrian Semiosis: Unpacking the Parodic Layers of Bahman Mohassess' Painting and Theater." ARTMargins 14, no. 1 (February 2025): 98–115.
- "Introduction to Jalal Al-e Ahmad's 'To Mohassess, for the Wall.'" ARTMargins 10, no. 2 (June 2021): 118–126.
Book Chapters
- "1980: Bahman Mohassess' Solo Exhibition at Galleria Fontanella Borghese." In Chronicle of the 1980s: Representational Pressures, Departures, and Beginnings in the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey, edited by Anneka Lenssen, Nada Shabout, and Sarah Rogers. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, forthcoming 2026.
- "Where Is My Photo?: Representation of Tehran in Contemporary Iranian Photography." In Ubiquity: Photography's Multitudes, edited by Kyle Parry and Jacob W. Lewis, 145–158. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2021.
Web-Based Publications
- "Behjat Sadr, Untitled." Smarthistory, 2026.
- "Bahman Mohassess, Minotaur." Smarthistory, 2024.
- "In Between Homage and Parody: Relationships Between Bahman Mohassess and Marino Marini." Italian Modern Art, 2021.
Translations
- Jalal Al-e Ahmad. "To Mohassess, for the Wall." Translated from Persian with Arash Davari. ARTMargins, 2021.
- Stefano Benni. Digar Tanha Nisti. Translated from Italian. Tehran: Herfeh: Honarmand Publications, 2012.
Courses Taught
- Art in Our Time
- Modernisms in the Middle East and North Africa
- Photography in Iran
- Modern and Contemporary Painting
- Introduction to Islamic Art
