‘The only means of fighting a plague is common decency.’ This is a sentence by Dr. Rieux in ‘The Plague’, a book by Albert Camus that we have understood more than ever in these final months of the year. Now put a blank space instead of the word ‘plague’ and write the name of any pandemic sickness or other pestilence, harming a society in constant crisis from within. Even take this sentence out of generality and look at it in Iranian partial art scene! Put the names bazar, illiteracy, dirty money, rationing, surfing, counterfeiting, being a sell-out author, nonsenseness, humiliation, castration, anything; treatment would be the same.
This bad year had actually nothing specific for art, as for the other areas. However, the wave of catastrophes saved the Iranian artist from the hypocritic sentence of “I’m not into politics”. There was no place for such verdict as political-caused difficulties happened in the most non-political situations. Silence became the specific definition of accompanying crime, so that you could not remain without any comment and position; a situation in which staying in the middle could not be justified.
Somewhere in the “Plague”, Dr. Rieux encourages Rambert, the journalist who insists on staying in the plague city to scape and says that preferring the happiness is not embarrassing and Rambert answers: “Yes, but it is embarrassing when one is happy alone.”