This chapter examines the emerging ideas and concerns that dominated the Iranian art community during the late 1990s and 2000s, coinciding with the beginning of the period known as the ‘Reform’ period (1997–2005). It discusses the rather conflicting views in the visual arts in Iran as expressed through artistic practices and events in this period, including art productions and exhibitions as well as critical reviews on these developments. It further explores concepts, mechanisms, strategies and paradigms of art practices in Iran, and tries to connect these paradigms to a burgeoning ‘contemporary art’ in Iran in the 2000s as a new type of time and space in art critical inquiry. The chapter's main focus is on the analysis of the dominant dichotomy in cultural and artistic ideas which Iranian artists had to confront. These include the idea of contemporaneity: being imbued with the spirit of the time, and specificity: being engaged with collective and individual identity; both existing practices in Iranian society and culture at large. The first involves the idea that alter-modernist imagery is one of fragmentation and hybridisation – the scattering of histories and the recombination of their diverse elements. The second refers to the ever-present obsession and engagement with cultural and frequently social concerns and deep-rooted anxieties about national and cultural identity. The two concerns raise the important question: is it possible to uncover an art discourse that is contemporary, while also being specific?

I touch upon critical discussions raised by the debate over questions of contemporaneity, including the inevitable issues arising from the process of globalisation, namely the forces of standardisation, located within the Iranian art scene. I will address questions such as how an effect of the globalisation process and globalising forces can directly influence the representation of locality in the works of artists (with reference to tradition, expressing views of contemporary local problems or as having a localised nature). This is related to discussions of the younger generation of Iranians’ demand for participation in global processes of communication. I discuss the developments that have empowered this eagerness. I will then address how an intellectual and aesthetic change that is also intended to initiate a contribution to global culture becomes a primary aim for the new generation.