Reflection of Traditional Elements in Contemporary Visual Arts, Based on the Discourse of Globalization and Cultural Amalgamation, with Emphasis on the Reinterpretation of The Carpet Pattern

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Assistant Professor, Department of Painting and Sculpture School of Visual Arts, College of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

One of the characteristics of contemporary art is the use of indigenous elements and traditional components, often employed with objectives such as identity recovery, emphasizing minority cultures, globalizing indigenous elements, and similar goals. The extensive artistic transformations in the present era have paved the way for the presence of indigenous elements in a new context, which generally convey new content. With the dominance of globalization and the parallel increase in international migrations, a wave of transcultural blends and interethnic combinations has emerged in art. Artists who experience a new life outside their homeland within diasporic communities often aim to establish a kind of interaction between the national heritage of art and the global discourse. They use reinterpretation of the past, cultural eclecticism, and adaptation to shape their artistic identity in their works. The Iranian carpet, as one of the most important branches of Iranian art and industry, has had a presence in global markets for several centuries and is considered a well-known art in the international arena, representing the authenticity, identity, and culture of Iran. However, contemporary conceptual art, by semantically utilizing the Iranian carpet with a new approach, has linked the semantic scope of this traditional art with the conceptual challenges of contemporary art. A deep dive into the works of some contemporary artists, including Mona Hatoum, David Hammons, Faig Ahmed, Farhad Moshiri, Babak Golkar, Sakir Gökçebağ, David Chalmers Alesworth, Rashid Rana, Sadegh Tirafkan and Ramazan Can who have used the Iranian carpet as a meaning‑making platform in new art, shows that firstly, the use of the carpet outside its traditional structure has repeatedly and with various approaches become a subject of contemporary art. Secondly, the carpet in the context of contemporary art has taken a completely different direction from traditional art. Thirdly, contemporary art generally uses the carpet as an identity‑forming element in defining Iranian (or Eastern) minority art in the global arena. Nevertheless, due to the diversity in the use of traditional visual elements such as carpet patterns in contemporary art works, questions arise about the impacts of globalization approaches and some foundational thoughts in the postmodern era on the application of ethnic elements such as carpets in contemporary art. Additionally, what goals and approaches do contemporary artists, especially Islamic diaspora artists, pursue in utilizing these elements in their works? These artists strive to achieve local identity construction in a global context by utilizing traditional arts. This article, using a descriptive‑analytical method, studies the works of artists with different cultural backgrounds who have used the carpet or its patterns as an identity‑forming element. In most of these works, the carpet is used in a form of dual oppositions in meaning‑making. The research findings indicate that the discussed works, with different origins and approaches, all share common features such as globalization, adaptation, and cultural eclecticism, and pursue goals such as local identity construction through creating new artistic blends, dual oppositions, and identity instability.

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References

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Journal of Fine Arts: Visual Arts
Volume 31, Issue 1
May 2026
Pages 57-71

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