Standardisation and the Question of Identity: On The Dominant Discourses on Contemporary Iranian Art

This article deals with the discourse of cultural globalisation and related issues such as the global market and cultural industry, which emerged as recent seminal factors within the context of Iranian culture, art and artistic practice during the recent history of Iran. Moreover, it seeks to explore the inevitable issues drawn from the process of globalisation, namely the forces of standardisation, question of identity, i.e. local, historical, imaginative and collective identity, which were followed by artistic production and thereafter other consequences and critical discussions, located differently by generations in the contemporary Iranian art scene. Accordingly the treatment of the subject is thematic rather than historical or chronological. Examining visual culture in post-revolutionary Iran, with particular emphasis on the recent developments—from the late 1980s onwards—this article then attempts to deal with the works of artists who are likely to involve some account of the historical specificity of their context, as well as an exploration of the ways in which the artists’ focal beliefs about national identity, social relations and cultural essentialism find expression in their work. It will then address how an intellectual and aesthetic change that is also intended to initiate a contribution to global culture becomes almost a desire for the new generation. It will examine the role of the new developments in the art market in the transformation of aesthetics and expectation. It seeks to show the sometimes contradictory relationship between international markets and local expectations and domestic forces opposed to globalisation. It will address questions such as how the locality of artists has been established, and how an effect of the globalisation process and globalising forces can directly influence the representation of such a locality in their art.