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In one chapter of Lives of the Artists, Calvin Tomkins explores the life and artistic practice of Richard Serra. He recounts Serra's formative years, his early encounters with modern art, and his rise to become one of the most influential contemporary sculptors in the United States.

This article begins with an encounter between two identically titled works: two Rabbits whose only shared feature is their name, yet whose visual presentation generates entirely different experiences for the viewer, situated at opposite poles. Jeff Koons’s Rabbit, with its polished and reflective surface, is firmly embedded within the visual and market-oriented logic of contemporary art. In contrast, Nikzad Nojoumi’s Rabbit, with its anthropomorphic and restrained body, confronts the viewer with an experience of suspension and violence. This opposition gives rise to the central question of the article: how does a single visual sign, operating within two distinct artistic fields, produce different systems of meaning, value, and artistic legitimacy? To address this question, the article examines the two works titled Rabbit by Jeff Koons and Nikzad Nojoumi.

In the late years of every summer, the walls of Tehran and Shiraz were adorned with posters for the Shiraz Arts Festival—posters that heralded the emergence of modern Iranian art at the crossroads of East and West. Today, these works are regarded as some of the most important examples of modern Iranian graphic design from the 1960s and 1970s. Their role extended far beyond merely announcing a cultural and international event; they played a fundamental part in shaping the visual identity of the festival and in fostering modernist movements in Iranian art and graphic design. The design of these posters combined traditional Iranian elements, Persian typography, and modern approaches drawn from international graphic design. Each poster preserves a chapter of Iran’s modern art history and is recognized as a distinguished work of art in its own right. The Shiraz Arts Festival was held over eleven editions, from 1967 to 1977, and became one of Iran’s most significant international cultural events. It provided a platform for artists from various disciplines across Iran, Asia, Europe, and the United States to present their work in the historic settings of Persepolis and Naqsh-e Rostam near Shiraz, helping to usher in a new era for Iranian art on the world stage.