Despite all the scarcities and problems that Iran faces, the country makes things happen. Even though many people see the country an area of hardships, it is not true. There are many new art evolving and developing in Tehran. Art professionals speak about Tehran and its art scene.
Iranian culture according to many people in Turkey is an exotic and the one that needed to be discovered. The latest articles written in the newspapers open an angle, yet not enough to discover the contemporary art scene in the city. Going to Tehran visiting the exotic Farah Diba Collection at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art or visiting the parties are among the musts that one can do in Tehran.
Iranian culture according to many people in Turkey is an exotic and the one that needed to be discovered. The latest articles written in the newspapers open an angle, yet not enough to discover the contemporary art scene in the city. Going to Tehran visiting the exotic Farah Diba Collection at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art or visiting the parties are among the musts that one can do in Tehran.
However, little did anyone know, there is a vibrant and live contemporary art scene in Tehran and there are about 200 art galleries in the city and some parts of the city are exclusively allocated for the art galleries, every Friday night there are art gallery show openings and every month collector groups from abroad visit the city to buy or see art. Tehran is also the city of full of cultural goings on. ‘There is a very active cultural life in Tehran and not only in Tehran, but Shiraz and Esfahan are right now having the branches of art galleries,” said Maryam Majd, the owner of the Assar art gallery. “We are hosting different collector groups in Tehran and we can say that everyone is coming to Tehran to buy Iranian art.” Noting they will be hosting a collector group first from Hong Kong and then from Belgium, Majd also added the local art market is so good in Iran they do not need to visit art fairs.
According to Nazila Noebashari, owner of Aaran Gallery, a very active art gallery that hosts almost 16 art exhibitions in one year, this busy and vibrant art market is not a coincidence. “This is like this since the beginning,” she said and added the beginning is the modern era of the Iranian art. The modern art era of Iran has its rise in late 1940s and 1950s. These years were the times that Iran increased contact with the West. In terms of art this was the period of Kamal al-Mulk, who has died in 1940 and left many art students behind him. Al-Mulk’s students have continued the modern era. After the active 1950s era, 60s and 70s followed the modernism with the vibrant international art scene as the local artists participated in the fairs, founded galleries and foreign collectors’ interests have risen. As a result, with the support of government in 1977 Tehran Museum for Contemporary Art has opened its doors, which is a still very active institution in Iran in supporting art. “The area is currently one of the culturally richest areas of Tehran. This area is full of art galleries and there is a vibrant local art scene there,” said Noebashari. Not only museum, but the Iranian Artists’ Forum is also the reason for city’s rich cultural background. Even though these venues come to afore in terms of promoting art, only museum’s hidden Farah Diba collection is known by the people who visit Tehran.
The rarely shown Farah Diba Collection
The modern day articles on Iranian contemporary art always refers to the ‘Farah Diba Collection,’ which is indeed the collection of Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary Art and is home to the world’s most valuable collection of western modern art outside Europe and the United States. The works include works by Pollock, Warhol and Bacon. The collection was bought under the supervision of Farah Pahlavi, the former queen of Iran who fled the country along with the late Shah during the turbulent events of the 1979 Islamic revolution. “Even though the collection is known as Farah Diba collection, it is the museum’s collection,” Maryam Majd said. The collection was made with Kamran Diba and Farah Diba together for the museum, she added. While some of the Turkish part professionals have the privilege to see the collection, Rabia Bakıcı Güreli, Vice Chairperson of Contemporary Istanbul said: ‘This year as part of the Contemporary Istanbul’s program CI Focus will be hosting a section titled Contemporary Tehran. As part of this program we have visited Tehran. The museum was designed by Kamran Diba. The architecture of the museum is fascinating. The works have been kept in the cellars and store rooms.”
Güreli also added, it is known that during the 1970s with the increase in the oil reserves, the museum was made with the support of the Queen Farah Pehlevi. “Güreli also noted the collection is consists of many Iranian artists. “However, the western artists in the collection are really fascinating and worth to see. The largest Rothko work I have seen is that collection,” she added. Degas, Gaugin, Renoir, Pissaro, Andy Warhol, Duchamp, Magritte and Rauschenberg are other works that have fascinated Güreli. This also makes Iran special, she added and said, after the Islamic revolution in 1979, I have heard that a work of Willem de Kooning has been exchanged and the rest of the collection kept as it is. This is an important thing.”
Even though the collection is a world renowned mystery for the Contemporary art lovers, for some Iranian art professionals it is just another exotic thing to see in Tehran. To open a new dimension on Tehran’s growing face, this year, as part of its 10thyear, Contemporary Istanbul is bringing Tehran galleries to the fair, added Güreli. It will be possible to see works by emerging and established artists such as Nasser Bakhshi (Aaran Gallery); Babak Roshaninejad (Assar Gallery); Ali Akbar Sadeghi (Shirin Gallery) Moreshin Allahyari (Lajevardi Foundation – New Media Society) and Houman Mortazavi (Dastan’s Basement), she said.
Expectations on Iran or the real Iran
There is a certain expectation from Iran or from an Iranian, said Behzad Khousravi Noori artist, academic and writer. ‘Where is Iran and who is Iranian? There is a certain expectation on that and people come to Iran with an expectation and when they come they see something completely different.” However, people encounter with a normal life, of course there is art and there are parties, people are living normally and creating art, added Noori.
There is a real difference between the Iran that is expected to see and the real Iran. The expectation in fact goes beyond the realness. “Every single thing that you are doing in Iran has been colonized by the grand political agenda. In this case there is a dark expectation for the people coming to Tehran. And after that they realize there is something different. They have the knowledge of this discourse but they cannot really experience that knowledge or this dark discourse. But this creates the superficial and shallow writings on Iran and also on Tehran. People would like to follow exotic things in Iran. However there is much more to see in terms of art, according to Nazila Noebashari. “Journalists coming to Iran, they do not want to see us; they don’t want to see the normal. For us art in Iran is a normal thing. They want to show the extreme things from Friday prayers to mad parties. But we are living normally in Iran,” she added.
It is a reality that Iran has not been exposed itself well in the recent years, said Maryam Majd. However, this era has been over and now there is social media. It is possible to find many different and wide information with the exposure of social media. According to Nic Newman’s paper written in September 2009, titled “The rise of social media and its impact on mainstream journalism,” (University of Oxford, Reuters Institute for the study of journalism) the social media became a major component of the overall narrative, according to PEJ, with around one in every twenty mainstream stories about Iran dominated by social media footage or news lines about social media (Newman, 2009, p 3).
It is known that, the reason why Iranian art has evolved in the world contemporary art world is because its own collectors collect Iranian artists even though they have left the country after 1979 Islamic revolution. Saeed Kouros, a second generation Iranian collector said, it’s true.
Many families are collecting Iranian art for many years. Kouros is a collector and a painter, who is still continuing this heritage. “My family has a private collection, which consists mainly of Islamic art in Tehran. I am the second generation. My father was a collector and my mother was a painter.” Kouros has many works such as calligraphy to oil on canvas paintings. As a collector Kouros also supports Iranian young artists. “We need to support them for them to continue collecting art. According Kouros, the Islamic art can be collected from the Islamic land. “