TEHRAN – The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art will open “In Search of Iran,” an exhibition exploring how Iranian identity and experience are represented in modern Iranian art, on Saturday, Nov. 1.
According to the museum’s public relations office, the exhibition, subtitled “In the Collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art,” examines the different ways artists have engaged with Iran, from explicit references to the country to expressions embedded in artistic form and technique.
Rather than ranking artworks by how “Iranian” they appear, the exhibition asks how Iran becomes a subject of representation and how it remains present in the ways artists see and create, according to its statement.
The works explore connections between identity and memories of places, everyday life, migration and loss. Soil, for example, can become an artistic material, writing can turn into an object of visual attention, and ordinary objects can preserve traces of human life and memory.
The exhibition is organized into seven sections, each framed by a question. Instead of following a chronological account of modern art, the sections establish visual and conceptual connections between works, encouraging visitors to consider different interpretations of Iranian experience.
More than 100 works from the museum’s collection of modern Iranian art will be displayed, including pieces by Sohrab Sepehri, Parviz Kalantari, Parviz Tanavoli, Hussein Zenderoudi, Farah Ossouli, Reza Mafi, Muhammad Ehsaei and other artists.
The exhibition opens to the public on Sunday, Nov. 2, and will run through mid-December.