The Wall, Armajani points out, recalls the space of a traditional coffee house in Tehran. Stitched
or appliqué floral patterns resemble architectural ornamentation arranged around a peaked arch.
At the center of the canvas appear painted black and white squares that evoke a checkered tile
floor. The work not only refers to the space of the coffee house but also identifies itself with the
genre of coffeehouse painting (naqqashi-yi qahva-khanai). The latter was typically hung on a
nearby wall while a reciter narrated the stories that depicted to the establishment's assembled
patrons. Often the paintings supported recitations or tellings of the Battle of Karbala (680 CE) or a
story from the eleventh-century Persian epic Shahnamah. In the iconography [of the Battle of
Karbala]," write the historian of religion Ingveld Flaskerud, "The battle and the martyrdom of alAbbas are represented as analepsis, in retrospection through the symbolic reading of
conventional signs firmly anchored in a well-known story". The appliqué-inscribed border in
Armajani's Wall echoes a motif common to the religious wall hanging, or parcham, a related genre
also referencing the Battle of Karbala. Moreover, the travelling line crossing the surface of the
cloth and the scrawled order to "follow this line!" – a reference to a popular urban joke frequently
seen on the walls of old neighborhoods in Iran. This playful celebration of city life is immediately
politicized by what looks like a street sign, a small rectangle on the top right side of the arch that
reads "Dr. Mossadegh Street". Five years after the coup the exiled national hero's forbidden
name at the forefront of the work is unmistakable. Like in most of the artist's works from this
period, literature plays an important role to reference the work's context. The Wall sees a quoted
line from a poem by Shahriar (1906–1988) that describes the poet's melancholic return to his
hometown. "Through an ajar door / sleepy eyes of a radiant tile / twinkle fading fast / then twinkle
more." If we are motivated enough to research and unpack this coded reference, we can find and
read the entire poem, and this little corner of Armajani's work suddenly opens up onto another
side of urban space, marked by Shahriar's detailed, elegant descriptions of alleys and cafes.
Urban spaces is therefore reproduced as an experience in the format of the collage through a
multiplicity of semiotic references. In the absence of a shared forum for public discourse and
contribution, this becomes an alternative way to imagine a new national space, activated by a
public that is willing to engage in an active mode of readership.