1 - Exhibitions of Modernist Iranian Art

Summary

The first chapter examines contemporary exhibitions inside and outside Iran as historiographical sites of knowledge production about modernist Iranian art. This chapter focuses on two case studies, the exhibition Iran Modern (2013–2014) and the canceled exhibition project Tehran Modern, which was supposed to present artworks from Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art’s collection at the National Gallery in Berlin. In light of these exhibitions outside of Iran, this chapter also investigates the history, legacy, and exhibition activities of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art as the official institution for modern art in Iran. A comparative perspective shows how these exhibitions repeated and strengthened the historiographical paradigm that modernist Iranian art production symbolizes the country’s successful modernization and secularization during the Pahlavi rule. A close analysis demonstrates that the depoliticized reading of Iranian modernist art in the respective exhibition contexts serves different contemporary political interests.