Unravelling Tradition: The Vocabulary of Carpets in Contemporary Art
In today’s world, there aren’t many great aesthetic traditions left to subvert. From pop-art to kitsch, and ever more rapidly in our post internet age, our perceptions, expectations, of traditional imagery have steadily altered. One might think that an artist seeking to rely on irony, defilement or unexpected uses of familiar forms would find the world’s supply exhausted. Not so. A number of contemporary artists have found inspiration in a virgin medium – the Oriental carpet.
Oriental carpets are incarnations of the ‘traditional’. They are prescriptive in design and the product of a continuous tradition; they are the antithesis of the contemporary. This contrast forms the central conceit of the installations created by the Azerbaijani artist Faig Ahmed. His work is characterised by a provocative relationship with formality, and traditional textiles are the foil to his rebellion. His pieces are recognisably Azerbaijani rugs, brightly coloured and geometrically-patterned. Yet their modernity slaps the viewer in the face. In the hands of Ahmed, carpets melt, bulge and distort. They exceed normal parameters and seep from the wall across the gallery floor. His use of pixilation and warping draws from op-art and digital internet aesthetics. One carpet liquefies Oiling, another pixelates Tradition in Pixel, and one, Impossible Viscosity, is rendered in melting tatters. The textiles give an impression of disfigurement. In his installation Disconnected the central threads of a stencil-like carpet are pulled out from the wall and woven across the gallery space.
Image: Martin Roth, untitled persian rugs installation 2012.
The skeletal carpet has been eviscerated, and destruction forms an important aspect of Ahmed’s inspiration. In a 2014 interview, he said of his work that it, “has given the carpet either new life or a total death because the old meaning was destroyed completely; but at the same time it’s got a whole new meaning.” It is tempting to side with ‘total death’. To make one piece, Recycled, Ahmed sought out an old, rare Azerbaijani carpet. He turned it into a sculpture of the recycling symbol suspended above the remains of the ancient, beautiful carpet, in tatters on the floor beneath.
The way Ahmed draws inspiration from carpets may seem simplistic. It is not innovative to take what is visually familiar and subvert it by reconfiguring it into a psychedelic, seemingly digitised warp. Yet his work reflects an unresolved tension of our age. Crafts such as weaving rely on a vocabulary of image and design which is prescribed by tradition. In the case of contemporary art, however, originality is paramount and subversion praised. Ahmed has described finding himself a ‘hostage to tradition’, a situation he answered with aesthetic violence. Whether ‘nothing perishes’ in Ahmed’s work, or if instead the death of tradition is the point, whether it represents destruction or deconstruction, carpets are the conceptual crux.
Image: Rudolf Stingel Installation at Palazzo Grassi, Venice, 2013.
Decay, in an earthier way, is the anti-theme of the artist Martin Roth. He lays valuable carpets on the floor of an exhibition space and places grass seeds on the top of them. Despite the seeds having no soil and just water, they grow from what Roth refers to as,“the dust of history.” With many Persian carpets themselves being representations of gardens, Roth is in essence bringing them to life. Whilst the grass does of course eventually die without any nutrients, his work is ultimately much more about life than death and decay, with an ephemeral nod to culture succumbing to nature.
Rudolf Stingel has also exploited the visual potential of textiles. His 2013 installation at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice covered the walls and floors of the building in Oriental carpet. Stingler’s installation is clever. It satisfies that key contemporary challenge: to alter the expected spatial relationship between artwork and viewer. Spreading over all interior surfaces, it produces an uncanny, enveloping, almost imprisoning aspect. Yet, similarly to Ahmed, Stingel’s work is not about the textile itself in a conventional way. Neither the deep red colour nor the stylised geometric designs and their probable origin are a real concern of the work. Stingel in fact hung his paintings on the carpeted walls, rendering the textiles a backdrop. Yet when oriental carpets were first brought to Venice, from the Byzantine and later the Ottoman Empire, they were not regarded academically. They were decorative objects of luxury. When used to effect in a palazzo the impact of such carpets perhaps remains the same, even in the hands of Stingel.
The visual appeal of carpets lies not only in the beauty and texture of their fabric, but also in their complex language of pattern. In Islamic countries carpet-making has long provided a means of non-representational artistic expression, resulting in a diverse repertoire of elegant, stylised motifs.
The oeuvre of Suzan Drummen draws inspiration from the sophisticated geometry of carpets, removing designs from their material context. She uses mirrors, glass and crystals, painstakingly laying them out over expanses of gallery floor in symmetrical patterns of roundels and medallions, not unlike the knots of a hand-woven carpet and paying tribute to the allure of rhythmic, curvilinear carpet design. Drummen is not the only contemporary artist to draw inspiration in a constructive way from the sophisticated patterns of Oriental carpets.
Image courtesy of Jason Seife.
Jason Seife, based in Miami, makes modern carpets. His innovation is to do so in paint, modernising and altering their tone and colour. In his lifeless ink and acrylic copies of carpet designs, it is hard not to see superficial shadows of the subtle, luxurious and beautiful art of carpet-weaving.
Carpets may have given much to the world of contemporary art, in inspiration and actual material; but what contemporary trends will impart to the weaving tradition remains to be seen.
Text by Cosima Stewart
Unravelling Tradition: The Vocabulary of Carpets in Contemporary Art was first published in Selvedge issue 74: Wild.
Oriental carpets are incarnations of the ‘traditional’. They are prescriptive in design and the product of a continuous tradition; they are the antithesis of the contemporary. This contrast forms the central conceit of the installations created by the Azerbaijani artist Faig Ahmed. His work is characterised by a provocative relationship with formality, and traditional textiles are the foil to his rebellion. His pieces are recognisably Azerbaijani rugs, brightly coloured and geometrically-patterned. Yet their modernity slaps the viewer in the face. In the hands of Ahmed, carpets melt, bulge and distort. They exceed normal parameters and seep from the wall across the gallery floor. His use of pixilation and warping draws from op-art and digital internet aesthetics. One carpet liquefies Oiling, another pixelates Tradition in Pixel, and one, Impossible Viscosity, is rendered in melting tatters. The textiles give an impression of disfigurement. In his installation Disconnected the central threads of a stencil-like carpet are pulled out from the wall and woven across the gallery space.
The skeletal carpet has been eviscerated, and destruction forms an important aspect of Ahmed’s inspiration. In a 2014 interview, he said of his work that it, “has given the carpet either new life or a total death because the old meaning was destroyed completely; but at the same time it’s got a whole new meaning.” It is tempting to side with ‘total death’. To make one piece, Recycled, Ahmed sought out an old, rare Azerbaijani carpet. He turned it into a sculpture of the recycling symbol suspended above the remains of the ancient, beautiful carpet, in tatters on the floor beneath.
The way Ahmed draws inspiration from carpets may seem simplistic. It is not innovative to take what is visually familiar and subvert it by reconfiguring it into a psychedelic, seemingly digitised warp. Yet his work reflects an unresolved tension of our age. Crafts such as weaving rely on a vocabulary of image and design which is prescribed by tradition. In the case of contemporary art, however, originality is paramount and subversion praised. Ahmed has described finding himself a ‘hostage to tradition’, a situation he answered with aesthetic violence. Whether ‘nothing perishes’ in Ahmed’s work, or if instead the death of tradition is the point, whether it represents destruction or deconstruction, carpets are the conceptual crux.
Decay, in an earthier way, is the anti-theme of the artist Martin Roth. He lays valuable carpets on the floor of an exhibition space and places grass seeds on the top of them. Despite the seeds having no soil and just water, they grow from what Roth refers to as,“the dust of history.” With many Persian carpets themselves being representations of gardens, Roth is in essence bringing them to life. Whilst the grass does of course eventually die without any nutrients, his work is ultimately much more about life than death and decay, with an ephemeral nod to culture succumbing to nature.
Rudolf Stingel has also exploited the visual potential of textiles. His 2013 installation at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice covered the walls and floors of the building in Oriental carpet. Stingler’s installation is clever. It satisfies that key contemporary challenge: to alter the expected spatial relationship between artwork and viewer. Spreading over all interior surfaces, it produces an uncanny, enveloping, almost imprisoning aspect. Yet, similarly to Ahmed, Stingel’s work is not about the textile itself in a conventional way. Neither the deep red colour nor the stylised geometric designs and their probable origin are a real concern of the work. Stingel in fact hung his paintings on the carpeted walls, rendering the textiles a backdrop. Yet when oriental carpets were first brought to Venice, from the Byzantine and later the Ottoman Empire, they were not regarded academically. They were decorative objects of luxury. When used to effect in a palazzo the impact of such carpets perhaps remains the same, even in the hands of Stingel.
The visual appeal of carpets lies not only in the beauty and texture of their fabric, but also in their complex language of pattern. In Islamic countries carpet-making has long provided a means of non-representational artistic expression, resulting in a diverse repertoire of elegant, stylised motifs.
The oeuvre of Suzan Drummen draws inspiration from the sophisticated geometry of carpets, removing designs from their material context. She uses mirrors, glass and crystals, painstakingly laying them out over expanses of gallery floor in symmetrical patterns of roundels and medallions, not unlike the knots of a hand-woven carpet and paying tribute to the allure of rhythmic, curvilinear carpet design. Drummen is not the only contemporary artist to draw inspiration in a constructive way from the sophisticated patterns of Oriental carpets.
Jason Seife, based in Miami, makes modern carpets. His innovation is to do so in paint, modernising and altering their tone and colour. In his lifeless ink and acrylic copies of carpet designs, it is hard not to see superficial shadows of the subtle, luxurious and beautiful art of carpet-weaving.
Carpets may have given much to the world of contemporary art, in inspiration and actual material; but what contemporary trends will impart to the weaving tradition remains to be seen.
Text by Cosima Stewart
Unravelling Tradition: The Vocabulary of Carpets in Contemporary Art was first published in Selvedge issue 74: Wild.