The Hafis-Goethe-Denkmal and Cultural Sounds? as Artistic Responses to Goethe’s Divan: Between Close Reading and Cultural Politics

ABSTRACT This paper examines two works of contemporary art, a sculpture-cum-civic monument and a sound installation, which respond to Goethe’s Divan. The discussion combines a critical review of the political climate within which the works were conceived with original interviews with the artists to offer close analysis of the works. I evaluate the relative impact that the Divan and scholarship on it had upon the two works. I further ask whether the artists and their sponsors felt compelled to downplay more contentious themes found in that legacy, given the ideal of intercivilizational dialogue so prominent in the discourses of German-Iranian cultural diplomacy. The paper offsets this critical reading, however, by highlighting the quite sophisticated treatments of occidental-oriental relations achieved by both works within their respective media.