The Tehran Collection. The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Berlin
Press release from 09/06/2016
From 4 December 2016, the Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin will be offering an insight into the collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA) in the Gemäldegalerie.
The collection is unique in its composition and history: not only does it have one of the largest holdings of 20th century Western art outside of Europe and the United States, it also combines these works with important positions in Iranian art, particularly from the 1960s and 1970s.
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, with the support of the Federal Foreign Office, had concluded an agreement with the TMoCa. SPK President Hermann Parzinger called the exhibition project a highlight in the Berlin exhibition calendar, but also a "significant gesture of cultural-political diplomacy". The civilising, unifying power of art speaks for itself. Parzinger said he hoped that the exhibition and the supporting programme organised by the Goethe-Institut would also help to strengthen civil society in Iran.
The collection was established for the newly founded TMoCA, which opened in 1977, under the second Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty. Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the works of Western art have been rarely seen locally and only occasionally abroad. Now they are leaving Iran as a collection for the first time. The Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin is the first international institution to present this special collection to the public and provide an overview of its focal points, particularly in painting.
"It is a great pleasure and enrichment to be able to show this unique exhibition in the Gemäldegalerie's Wandelhalle," says Michael Eissenhauer, Director General of the National Museums in Berlin and Director of the Gemäldegalerie. "There could hardly be a more suitable venue for this cross-cultural project than the Kulturforum, which is home to both 20th century modernism and European art history."
The exhibition shows around 60 outstanding works of American and European art by Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Francis Bacon, among others, together with artists of Iranian modernism, including Faramarz Pilaram, Mohsen Vaziri Moghadam, Behjat Sadr and many others. This will give the public a rare opportunity in Germany to familiarise themselves with important positions in Iranian art from the second half of the 20th century. The collection will subsequently be on display at the MAXXI - Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo in Rome.
The supporting programme for the exhibition is being organised by the Goethe-Institut in close cooperation with the Berlinale, the CTM Festival, the Free University and other partners. The aim is to contextualise the works of TMoCA culturally and historically, to show a surprising picture of today's Iranian cultural scenes and to create spaces for cultural cooperation.
Positions from the visual arts, film, music, literature, theatre and philosophy will highlight the perspectives and limits of artistic creation in Iran. Home visits to Iranian families will bring writers from Tehran into dialogue with German participants. A philosophical programme will explore the concept of modernity in Western and Iranian discourse. And a series of concerts will bring together the traditional sounds of santoor, setar and daf with the sounds of the Iranian electronic music scene.
The Secretary General of the Goethe-Institut Johannes Ebert: "The supporting programme places the collection from Tehran in a contemporary context and takes a look at today's Iranian cultural scene. The intensive encounters, the open discourse and the diversity of artistic forms of expression, which the Goethe-Institut stands for with its work abroad, offer the Berlin audience new insights into a multi-layered country."
The Goethe-Institut is the globally active cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany. With 159 institutes in 98 countries, it promotes knowledge of the German language abroad, fosters international cultural cooperation and conveys an up-to-date image of Germany. Through co-operation with partner institutions in numerous other locations, the Goethe-Institut has a total of around 1,000 contact points worldwide.
Exhibition data
The Tehran Collection.
The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Berlin
An exhibition of the Nationalgalerie in the Gemäldegalerie - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
4. December 2016 - 26 February 2017
Tickets for the exhibition
Advance ticket sales for the exhibition have begun. Tickets and guided tours in German and English can now be booked online via the website of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
Correction 08.11.2016: The exhibition "The Tehran Collection. The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Berlin" is a cooperation between the Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art and the MAXXI (Rome). Unfortunately, the recent changes in the Iranian Ministry of Culture have led to unforeseeable delays for all sides, so that the originally planned opening date of 4 December no longer seems certain. However, the SPK firmly believes that the exhibition in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie will be able to open in December.