Pārk-e Farah

Tehran Modern Art: It is just a modern art exhibition – isn't it?
A few days before my trip to Tehran, I was on a Skype call with one of my friends there. He is a film-maker too and knows how much I am into cinema and all kinds of art. He gave me some recommendations on what to see in Tehran during our first days in the city and before I would meet him.

He kept on insisting that I have to see an exhibition of European art in the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art and mentioned that people come to Tehran from all over the world just to see it.
We got into a small fight, when I told him that I have seen modern art exhibitions around Europe, in the Centre de Pompidou and the Louvre in Paris, the Prado and the Reina Sofia in Madrid, etc. Why would I go to the museum in Tehran too? I would rather love to spend the limited time there with locals, exploring the city or visiting a museum of Iranian art.

I had forgotten about the fight already, when I read about the very same exhibition in an Austrian newspaper and just found it interesting that it even made it to international news.

On our first day in Tehran we spend an significant amount of time in Laleh Park, trying to find the entrance to the Persian Carpet Museum. The Museum of Contemporary Art is situated just next door so we dropped by.

Already during the first few minutes in the museum, I noticed some differences - the museum is mostly build underground and some of the walls of the exhibition rooms are, contrary to the usual white, light grey or beige tones painted in warm, intense colors.

A mix of foreign tourists and young Iranian art lovers walked through the exhibition but still it was not too crowded. The cool rooms and studying the art pieces felt relaxing after the day in the sun and in the hectic Tehrani streets.

The art works were stunning and the exhibition truly held works by a wide range of artist but still I couldn't get why my friend got so upset.

On a long bus ride a few days after our visit, I read a bit more about the museum and the art scene in Iran and little by little I started to understand the reason behind his anger.

The construction of the museum was ordered by the Shah's wife Farah Diba.
Both the Shah and his wife were open to modern art and Western, especially European life style and friends with leaders and artists around the world. Over the years they gathered a significant collection of paintings by well known artists from Bacon to Picasso.

After the revolution in 1979, this type of art was seen as inappropriate by the new governors and the collection was partly destroyed or stored away in the cellar of the museum and couldn't be seen by the public.

In the early 2000s the works where again displayed for the first time after the revolution, only to be stored away again under the last leader of Iran.
With the new and more liberal government gaining power the exhibition of paintings and sculptures opened again.

I felt ashamed of my wrong estimation of the situation, that let to the fight. For my friend this is not just an art exhibition but also a symbol for Iran's turbulent history and passion for art and the re-opening of the museum to the public now, a symbol of the ongoing liberalization in the country.

These two articles give a bit more information on the history and the exhibits:
https://www.worldcrunch.com/culture-society/see…
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-tehran-…Read more