A woman in her late fifties, dressed in a black chador with a small sun hat, accompanied by her daughter-in-law and her granddaughter — a girl of about four or five years in a white floral dress — journeyed to Tehran to spend the Nowruz holidays away from the hustle and bustle of the pilgrimage and tourist city of Mashhad during this time of year. Their first choice for spending a holiday in Tehran is the “Museum of Contemporary Art.” Why? The grandmother did not let anyone else answer; she said, “There’s no one more important than Picasso. We came to see Picasso.”
An exhibition of Picasso’s works was held at Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary Art from late Esfand (March) to the end of Ordibehesht (May). Preparation for this exhibition began to be assembled last Day (January), 2024. The museum issued a call inviting other museums and private collectors to contact the exhibition curators if they had any Picasso works in their collections. The artist created more than 130,000 pieces. For individuals who lived during his lifetime and collected art, it was not unreasonable to hope to acquire one of them despite the sky-high prices his work fetched even while he was still alive. Iranian museums and collectors who lived during the economic boom of the Westernized Pahlavi government in the 1970s were also among the lucky acquirers.
Estimating the number of Picasso works currently held in Iran is not an easy task. The curators of the exhibit had to rely on voluntary attestations from lucky viewers or owners who were aware of a work in a particular collection or museum. There isn’t a reliable catalog detailing which major Iranian museums hold Picasso’s works. All we know is that, aside from Tehran’s avant-garde Museum of Contemporary Art, private collectors from the last Iranian royal family were also interested in Picasso and acquired some of his works. After the Revolution, these pieces were transferred to the Mostazafan Foundation, the entity tasked with managing the assets left behind by the fleeing royal family. Some of these works have been displayed and listed in recent years, while others remain hidden from public view.
Thus, the prospect of an exhibition of Picasso’s works in Tehran was quite thrilling. The Museum of Contemporary Art’s call offered the chance to finally behold all the Picassos currently in the country, all in one. But as the saying goes, “Love seemed easy at first, but challenges arose!”
Private collectors refrained from responding to the museum’s call. Some cite fears of damage to the works, concerns about their loss, or even confiscation. There is precedent for such anxieties. Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution Iranian Capitalists, both those who had remained in the country and those who had fled during the unrest were targeted and stripped of their property. Not only were most factories and private investments transferred to the state, but also the immovable properties of individuals and families were seized and handed over to government bodies and institutions such as the Foundation of the Oppressed (Bonyad-e Mostazafan). Museums established in former royal-family residences are now filled with assets that were declared “national property” during this wave of expropriation. Family collections — such as the one owned by Habibollah Sabet Pasal, the former director of Iran’s national television before the Revolution, or the one which belonged to Ashraf Pahlavi, sister of the last Shah — are among the many that were confiscated during this period. Although much time has passed, collective memory is strong, and the fear remains. Other museums also declined to collaborate with the Museum of Contemporary Art, partly because institutions like the Mostazafan Foundation’s museums and the Museum of Contemporary Art are not managed by a single governmental body. The Mostazafan Foundation operates outside government control, while the Museum of Contemporary Art falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. The fact that there is no unified management system governing the many institutions which tend to the remaining artworks in Iran has made collaboration extremely difficult. Siloed bureaucracy, lengthy administrative coordination, and the need to obtain multiple permits for transferring works from one museum to another have, in practice, dissuaded museums from cooperating in joint exhibitions. Another part of the issue lies in the complex administrative procedures and time-consuming coordination required to transfer works between museums — an endeavor likely unfeasible within the two months between the announcement of the call and the opening of the “Picasso in Tehran” exhibition.
Nevertheless, the Museum of Contemporary Art itself holds a rich collection of Picasso’s works. Some claim it has between 200 and 300 pieces, while others estimate it to be between 250 and 300. Given this wealth, if necessary, the museum could stage the exhibition using only its holdings.
The “Picasso in Tehran” exhibition ultimately featured sixty displayed works by Picasso, four short films, substantial text displays for the museum walls, and a selection of works reminiscent of Picasso’s style but created by other artists. Yet, for anyone who has experienced “Picasso in Tehran,” the end of the exhibition could never truly mark the end of this journey.
The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art is less a venue for “art practice” and more a space for “art encounters.” From its unique concrete structure to the sculptures adorning its surroundings and interior, as well as the diverse exhibitions it hosts, the museum appeals not so much to the “contemporary gallery-goer” as it does to individuals seeking an escape from daily life. It is located between the two main campuses of the University of Tehran and near one of the city’s primary administrative and political hubs, close to one of Tehran’s old parks, and adjacent to a bustling and affordable street market. Its central location makes the Museum of Contemporary Art more accessible to ordinary people than to the wealthy elite. High school students, teenagers discovering love for the first time, and tourists constitute the museum’s regulars. While its intellectual and artistic hub comes alive during special screenings in its small basement cinema, on ordinary days, people of all kinds can be found inside and around the museum. And even in such a setting, the “Picasso in Tehran” exhibition is far from an ordinary day at the museum.
In the early days of the “Picasso in Tehran” exhibition, images of long queues outside the Museum of Contemporary Art circulated widely. It’s helpful that ticket prices for the museum are incredibly low compared to similar museums worldwide — 1,000,000 Rials (approximately $ 24) for adults, 500,000 Rials (around $ 12) for students, and free for children under twelve. “Influencers” and “Content Creators,” tempted by event flyers and by the low price of entry, made their way to the museum’s doors as well. The fruits of their efforts were highly effective in promoting the show. According to the museum, in the first fifteen days of the exhibition, approximately 55,000 people visited, took photographs, snapped selfies, and shared their experiences with friends about what they’d seen. Even after the Nowruz holidays, the exhibition continued to attract an average of 500 visitors daily. People came from all over the country, among them Iranians living abroad who returned for the new year and spring holidays. One such visitor, who had come from Germany for ten days, said: “[Before this visit] all the photos I had taken in Iran were of the same things everyone associates with Iran — food, colorful clothing, and things like that. Nobody expects to see Picasso in Iran. That’s why I made it a point to visit this exhibition while I’m here. For those of us who don’t live in Iran, it’s essential to experience some of the country’s cultural events to stay connected with its cultural landscape. But honestly, taking photos of Picasso’s works and posting them on Instagram, where our foreign friends follow us, helps shift the way they perceive us — just a little.”
The museum seized this opportunity to educate the public about Picasso, modern art, Cubism, and Picasso’s specialization in printmaking. The exhibition begins with a large wall text summarizing Picasso’s nine decades of life and the various stages of his artistic journey. The selected works for the exhibition are accompanied by videos screened in the museum halls, which introduce and decode the collection. This educational approach, which traces Picasso’s personal and professional life, might come across as tedious for those with a more advanced artistic background. But that was part of the point: it wasn’t for the already-initiated. One of the exhibition’s curators addressed this concern, stating: “After all, museums worldwide have an educational role. While some may wish to regard art as something exclusive to the elite, university-educated, and wealthy individuals, many others — including the curators of this exhibition — believe that art is for the people, should be accessible to the public, and can serve as a gateway for people to explore things they wouldn’t ordinarily encounter in their daily lives.”
For those visitors who consider themselves beyond the artistic education offered by the museum, there are still subjects for discussion. No one would argue that Picasso’s artistic life can be imagined without World War II or without his most famous work, Guernica — the black-and-white depiction of the devastation of the Spanish Civil War in a civilian village, which was impacted by Allied intervention. However, the museum had to display a replica or copy of Guernica alongside some of Picasso’s most valuable works held in the Museum of Contemporary Art’s collection, including three paintings from the Weeping Woman series, in its largest gallery, Gallery No. 4. Few expected the original Guernica to be exhibited. Yet, the display of a replica has sparked debate. Critics argue that this move diminished the overall quality of the exhibition. At the same time, defenders argue that Picasso’s artistic life cannot be fully understood without Guernica, and the distinction between the original and the replica should take secondary importance.
Other sections of the “Picasso in Tehran” exhibition, starting with an image from the Painter and Model series, are as thought-provoking as they are comprehensible to the average visitor. A significant part of the exhibition revolves around the display of two books—Natural History and Bullfighting (also known as Tauromachia)—which are accessible to even untrained audiences.
Natural History is an illustrated summary of Buffon’s work, which Picasso presented using diluted black ink mixed with thick sugar syrup, applied to a metal surface coated with Arabic gum. In 1957, a special edition of this book was discovered; Picasso had gifted it to Dora Maar in 1923, and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art is now its owner. Tauromachia, for its part, consists of twenty-six prints illustrating the first and most important reference book on the culture of bullfighting, written in 1792 by Spain’s legendary hero José Delgado. Picasso was commissioned to illustrate the text in 1927. The twenty-six prints, created using the lift-ground technique, were completed in 1957. They intertwine power, violence, delicacy, love, and death within the realm of bullfighting. The books deserved a better presentation. The sections of the exhibition in which they appear are unclear about the works’ artistic value, significance, and the authenticity of these and other books attributed to Picasso.
A drama student, who mentioned he had seen the Picasso in Tehran exhibition twice and plans to visit again, said, “I don’t like Picasso. I’m not a fan of modern painting, and I don’t find much value in looking at printed books either. All these things can be found online, and in better quality. But I came to the museum because I wanted the chance to see important works of art from around the world. For us living in Iran, especially as students, there is almost no chance of becoming direct audiences to great art. Iran feels like life is always happening somewhere else. With filtered internet, restricted access to everything, especially to contemporary global artistic and cultural trends, and all the threats and stress about whether war breaks out today or tomorrow, it’s as though while the rest of the world moves forward, everything in Iran has come to a halt. It feels like we’re not part of this world. Then, they hold an exhibition like “Picasso in Tehran”. You can look at works valued by the entire world. Even people from outside Iran come to see these works, which makes the exhibition all the more exciting. It shows people that Iran is not just about Achaemenid and Sasanian art or ancient history. We, too, are part of this world—or at least we used to be—and now we can look at it again. In my opinion, this is one of the most important reasons why Picasso in Tehran is so appealing.”
Seeing fragments of the world’s most significant works of art, viewing some of the most important pieces by the world’s foremost modern painter, reminds Iranians of a previous life, before the crippling sanctions that halted many cultural events in Iran — back when the Tehran International Book Fair attracted notable global publishers, or the Fajr International Film Festival showcased significant contemporary films from world cinema. These events, which are now distant memories, were from an era when the only news from the outside world was not constant threats to the country’s existence or looming war.
It is in this context that visitors find themselves returning again and again to the Guernica replica. A cry of anguish against war, displayed at a time when Iran is inundated with news of a potential new war, and when the same scorched-earth tactics used by Allied and Axis forces — one against Spain and the other against Germany — are being applied in Gaza. One of the longest videos in the Picasso in Tehran exhibition is a documentary about the creation of Guernica. Live footage of the bombing of the village of Guernica and the ruins left behind, interspersed with texts decoding the painting’s tangled imagery, pulls most visitors’ attention away from the peaceful atmosphere of the museum to a very real and immediate war nearby, a war that no one had expected to spread to Tehran a mere few weeks after the exhibition closed.
Art is sometimes considered a distraction from reality. Yet, somehow, the distractions became so potent that art shifted from an escape to a warning about tragedies unfolding right before us. When the U.S. and its allies were preparing to invade Iraq, the organizers of Colin Powell’s press conference, then U.S. Secretary of Defense, bitterly placed an image of Guernica behind Powell. However, at the insistence of Powell’s aides, the image was covered with a blue curtain before the event began. Displaying a replica of the same work in the springtime in Tehran — amid news about military mobilizations at the borders and potential targets within Iran, which lead to a full scale war between Israel and Iran and is seams that it will also involve the US as well — reminds viewers as much about the tumult of Picasso’s time as it does about the man himself. History repeats. Replication, indeed.