Museum Archives - Iran News Daily

Iranian museum flaunts exquisite carpets

mahla — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 21:34:05 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) –The Carpet Museum of Iran, with its dazzling beauty, is one of the tourist spots located in the Iranian capital, Tehran.

The museum was founded in 1976 for research purposes on the records, developments and historical quality of Iranian carpets as an art and industry.

Occasional exhibitions are held in the museum premises to display hand-woven carpets from Iran and other parts of the world.

The name might be misleading, as the museum showcases a type of flat tapestry-woven handicraft, called kilim, as well.

The two-story building of the museum is an impressive piece of architecture, the exterior of which resembles a carpet-weaving frame.

You can find a plethora of hand-woven rugs, carpets, and kilims in different colors, designs, and weaving patterns in the museum.

It is home to an invaluable collection of carports from the 13th century onwards and is considered a rich research resource for researchers and art lovers.

About 135 pieces of masterpieces of Iranian carpets, woven by top-notch carpet weaving artists from Kashan, Kerman, Isfahan, Tabriz, Khorassan, Kordestan, and many other Iranian cities are exhibited in the hall on the ground floor.

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Tehran museum apologizes for insect problem at minimalism, conceptual art exhibit

mahla — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 21:16:54 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) –Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art has apologized to the public for the insects that were found on a photo by Bernd and Hilla Becher on view at the museum.

Insects seen on a rare photo by the German conceptual photographers sparked a social media frenzy last week.

A video, which went viral last Sunday, shows two silverfish trapped underneath the glass of a frame for the photo.

In a statement published on Wednesday, the museum also praised the Iranian art community for their sensitivity to the artworks being preserved at the center.

“The artworks in the museum’s treasure trove are our national capital, and ensuring a proper preservation of the treasure is a significant topic of concern for us, and the Iranian art community’s regard for art is a valuable asset,” the statement said.

The museum also ensured that the insects have not caused any damage to the artwork.

A team composed of entomologist Siavash Tirgari, fine art restoration expert Samaneh Hosseinian and the museum’s conservation specialist Zahra Nikui examined the photo and the result was announced in the statement.

The team said that they have detected no trace suggesting that the insects have fed on the cellulose of the passe-partout used in the frame of the photo.

They also said they have not found any other insect on other works on display at the museum.

However, the museum was closed on Thursday and Friday for fumigation.

Photos by Bernd and Hilla Becher, well known for their industrial photographs, or typologies, are part of a collection of rarely-seen artworks of minimalism and conceptual art on view in an exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

Earlier in March, the museum also suffered a severe blow after a thespian slightly damaged an artwork named “Oil Pool” by mistake during his performance.

The solo performance entitled “Cat of the Silk Road” was put on by Yasser Khaseb as part of a program for the opening ceremony of the Panj Ganj Exhibition organized to commemorate Iranian poet Nezami Ganjavi.

During the performance, Kahseb’s body was suspended by a belt over Japanese artist Noriyuki Haraguchi’s “Oil Pool” and a part of it was immersed in the artwork’s oil, some of which dripped on the floor.

Located in a hall of the museum, “Oil Pool” is a sculpture featuring a large metal container filled with used engine oil.

Haraguchi executed the artwork at the museum in 1977 after creating several editions across the world, including the one set up at “Documenta 6” in the German city of Kassel.

Photo: Two silverfish can be seen trapped underneath the glass of a frame for a photo by German conceptual photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

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Persian Gulf Regional Museum to Be Open in September

reporter 1222 — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 05:15:13 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The Persian Gulf Regional Museum in Iran’s southwestern province of Bushehr is to be inaugurated in late September coincided with the World Tourism Day, said a local cultural heritage and tourism official.

According to Nasrollah Ebrahimi, the deputy director general of the Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicraft Department of Bushehr province, the museum is to be open during the World Tourism Day celebrations on September 27, IRNA reported.

The official added that the museum was built with a budget of 400 billion rials (about $9.5 million at the official rate of 42,000 rials) in an area of eight hectares.

He said that the museum will be inaugurated by Iranian Minister of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Ali-Asghar Mounesan.

As one of Iran’s modern museums, the Persian Gulf Regional Museum has 15 galleries and will display relics from different historical eras and the main building of the museum is located in the former British Consulate, which was built in the Qajar era (1789–1925), Ebrahimi said.

The Persian Gulf Regional Museum with an area of approximately 3,200 square meters is built in 2 floors to showcase the objects remained from the regional history of the Persian Gulf or collected from the provinces of Bushehr, Khuzestan and Hormuzgan.

The former consulate of Britain (Sabzabad edifice) is used currently as a maritime museum by Iran’s Navy. The facility is one of those historical buildings of Bushehr city which had been constructed in southern Iran by the British government in order to do consular affairs and also be used as the residence of the British ambassador during Britain’s dominance in 19^th century.

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Iran, Russia Discuss Expanding Museums Cooperation

reporter 1222 — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 05:16:09 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iran and Russia discussed the expansion of museum cooperation in a joint online webinar titled Iran-Russia Joint Cooperation of Museums.

The heads of the national museums of the two countries discussed the need to develop inter-museum cooperation, ISNA wrote.

This has been organized by the Iranian Cultural Center in Russia, in cooperation with the General Directorate of Cultural Cooperation and Affairs of Iranians Abroad.

Director of Iran’s National Museum Jebrael Nokandeh, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Ehsan Aqaei, Iran’s Cultural Attaché in Russia Qahreman Soleimani, and Director of the Hermitage Museum Mikhail Piotrovsky attended the online meeting.

The participants noted the efforts to strengthen and develop interactions between the museums of the two countries and create an appropriate platform for joint cultural events.

They also expressed the hope that these meetings would be held periodically.

The meeting also focused on holding online exhibitions due to the restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The subject of Iranology was also emphasized as one of the important branches of study in Russian museums.

Nokandeh emphasized that the National Museum of Iran is willing to expand cooperation between the two countries.

Referring to an exhibition held in 1973 in the Museum of Ancient Iran of Sassanid masterpieces which belong to the Hermitage Museum in Moscow, Nokandeh expressed the National Museum of Iran’s readiness to continue this long-standing cultural relationship.

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Singapore calls for increased museum coop. with Iran

reporter 1222 — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 15:30:17 +0000

In a Wednesday meeting with Iranian officials in Tehran, Singapore’s ambassador to Iran called for increasing bilateral cooperation in the domain of museums.

A meeting was held in Tehran-based National Museum of Iran with non-resident Singapore’s ambassador Ong Keng Yong, deputy head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handcraft and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) Mohammad Hassan Talebian, Iranian ambassador to Singapore Javad Ansari, director of Museum of Ancient Iran Jebrael Nokandeh and other officials in attendance.

The two sides conferred on topics of mutual interest in the cultural and tourism domains, including developing an Iranian studies center at Singapore’s Asian Civilizations Museum, establishing tourism consortium between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the ASEAN Union, presence of Singaporean investors in Iran’s tourism industry, forming a joint tourism committee and holding mutual cultural weeks in both countries.

Talebian touched upon the appropriate level of relations and common cultural affinities between the two nations and elaborated on the historical items of the National Museum of Iran. He expressed Iran’s readiness to hold joint museum exhibitions both in Iran and in Singapore.

Yong, for his part, highlighted the need to expand cultural ties between the two countries, adding that he will discuss these topics with related Singaporean authorities.

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Louvre show wraps up months of boom in Tehran museum visits

reporter 1222 — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 14:15:26 +0000

A momentous Louvre show came to an end at the National Museum of Iran on Monday.

The exhibit pulled in over 250,000 nationwide visitors since the opening date on March 5.

“The Louvre show has been visited by over 250,000 people including administration and international officials and diplomats, artists and other personalities,” Mehr quoted Mohammadreza Kargar, a cultural heritage official, as saying on Sunday.

Historic relics of the show will be collected on Tuesday to be returned to France, he added.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian attended the opening ceremony of the exhibit which was then deemed by many as a triumph of cultural diplomacy between Iran and the West despite political tensions which were still in place.

It put on show some 50 works including 2,400-year-old Egyptian sphinx, a bust of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and drawings by Rembrandt and Delacroix and other artifacts linked to Greek, Egyptian and Mesopotamian culture, as well as objects from ancient Iran.

A highlight of the show was a relief with ancient Iranian origins dating back to 2nd or the 4th centuries CE. Titled “Mithra killing the Bull”, it represents Iranian god Mithra sacrificing a bull. Being unearthed in modern Lebanon, the relief also depicts busts of the four seasons, the busts of the moon and the sun as well as the twelve signs of Zodiac. The work of art is reportedly a symbol of the rebirth of nature and the cycle nature of time.

In parallel with the Tehran event, the Louvre also presented “The Rose Empire Masterpieces of 19th-Century Persian Art”, which showcased a vast collection of Qajar-era (1785-1925) objects at France’s Louvre-Lens art museum from March 28 to July 22.

The Tehran’s Louvre show was supposed to wrap up in June, however, it was extended until July 30 due to receiving warm welcome from museumgoers. It was the first large-scale exhibition by a major Western museum in Iran.

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Artists cite concern on environmental issues at “Habitat”

reporter 1222 — Sat, 23 Jun 2018 15:30:09 +0000

TEHRAN – A group of Iranian artists share environmental concerns in “Habitat”, an exhibition underway at Tehran’s Vista Gallery.

Curator Setareh Hosseini chose Parisa Aslankhani, Mahnaz Pasikhani, Ebrahim Hassanzadeh Dizaji, Atefeh Khas, Maryam Zargar, Leila Refahi, Reyhaneh Savari, Maryam Toluei, Saba Arabshahi, Mohammad-Ali Adili, Mina Abdus, Esmat Alirezai, Parvaneh Qesmati Motlaq, Leila Gudarzi and Ali Nurpur to work on the “Habitat” project.

“The artworks, including a collection of paintings and two sculptures, depict the artists’ studies and reflect the negative and partly positive effects of environmental issues such as the global warming, air pollution, urban sprawl, waste disposal, water pollution, climate change and many more,” Hosseini told the Tehran Times.

“The lethal effect of dust particles on the skin causing a type of skin cancer is portrayed in one painting, while another painting highlights the negative effect of pollution causing Alzheimer’s,” she said.

Curator Setareh Hosseini poses at the exhibition of “Habitat” at Tehran’s Vista Gallery on June 17, 2018. (Honaronline/Maryam Ramezanlu)

A number of artworks also reflect the repercussions that the air pollution has had for the lives of future generations.

“Today environmental pollution is a global issue, it is not just limited to Iran, and many artists feel a responsibility to mirror the problem in the best way that they can,” said Hosseini who is a painter and video artist who teaches at Sureh University in Tehran.

“However, I believe we can disseminate information more widely through media. We as artists cannot do more than display works in a gallery with its limitations and particular visitors. Larger organizations should take action and inform people, and art can only help,” she added.

She continued, “We all know that art is a global language, and environmental action is a new concern in the world. However, it must not be just relegated to a confined space like a gallery.”

For example, she said that the municipality can bring together artists who have concentrated on environmental action and promote this topic across the city.

She pointed to Tehran Municipality’s project “A Gallery as Large as a City” that displayed copies of works from famous artists on billboards across the city in spring 2016 and said similar actions can raise public awareness of environmental issues.

“Other minor activities like publishing posters on environmental issues, to include ensuring the long-term health and well-being of all earth’s inhabitants, can also be helpful,” she said.

The exhibit also considers the positive factors in the environment.

“For example, the positive effect of the microbes on the body has been studied and painted by one of the artists. The artist studied a specific type of microbe for seven or eight months in a laboratory, and later the microbe and its positive effects were represented in a series of paintings on show,” Hosseini said.

Elsewhere, she stressed that, although the environmental action is a new trend in the world, it could be more influential when studies and research works are added.

“A drawing of animals does not necessarily make it an environmental artwork. If the artist has not carried out research or has not studied it, the artwork cannot be realistic. In this exhibit, all the individual artists who were selected have done their studies that were actually in line with all their works. Some of them were invited later and joined us later, but they all had their own concerns and had conducted academic studies in advance,” she explained.

She said that the exhibition concentrates on Iran’s environment and the artists have created the artworks based on their own personal concerns.

Hosseini next said that she is planning to continue with additional exhibits on the same topic but on a larger scale.

“We mainly process the feedback on the exhibition in our country. We believe we need to be influential in our own country first. We must try to make more efforts in our country. Joining environmental concerns and studies together is difficult. However, this exhibit should help find ways to provide education about these activities,” she concluded.

The showcase will run until June 25 at the gallery located at No. 11, 12th Alley, Mir Emad St.

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Foreign museums pay $100k-200k for displaying Iranian antiques

reporter 1222 — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 12:30:52 +0000

Iranian director for museum affairs says countries pay Iran 100,000-200,000 dollars for displaying Iranian historical items and antiques at their museums.

Mohammadreza Kargar, director for museum affairs at the Cultural Heritage, Handcraft and Tourism Organization, told Mehr News correspondent on Wednesday that the payment is partly from the revenues obtained from selling tickets.

He added that all display costs are paid by the foreign side, including the insurance for the historical items, their legal and governmental immunity, as well as the transfer and packaging costs. He noted the Louvre as an example that financially assisted Iran for opening a large-scale exhibition of historical items from the French museum in Tehran.

“We sign comprehensive agreements in this field,” he stressed.

The National Museum of Iran is currently hosting a collection of artworks on loan from the Louvre in Paris for a four-month period. The exhibition, comprising a collection of 56 ancient artworks, will wrap up on June 21.

Meanwhile, the Drents Museum in the Netherlands is planning to display a collection of nearly 200 Iranian antique items from June 17 to November 18 in city of Assen.

According to Kargar, the whole expense has been covered by the Dutch government.

The exhibition aims to introduce the Iranian civilization to Europe, he added.

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Japan museums to exhibit Iranian illustrations

reporter 1222 — Wed, 30 May 2018 12:30:34 +0000

Five art museums in Japan will exhibit illustrations of Iranian artists.

According to the website of Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, some Iranian illustrations which had been accepted in Biennial of Illustration Bratislava 2017, will be exhibited in Japan’s art museums.

‘I was a deer’ illustrated by Narges Mohamadi which won the Golden Apple award of the festival will be among the exhibited works.

‘Zahhak’ illustrated by Farshid Shafi’i is another chosen illustration for this exhibition.

The aim of this exhibition is to introduce various country’s art of illustration to Japanese illustrators and will be held for 6 to 8 weeks.

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National Museum of Iran: A Prestigious Museum

reporter 1222 — Tue, 01 May 2018 06:30:25 +0000

National Museum of Iran, located in Tehran, aging more than 70 years, and containing 300,000 museum objects in an area more than 20,000 square meters.

Is not only the largest museum of History and Archaeology of the country, but ranks as one of the few most prestigious museums of the world in regard to grand volume, diversity and quality of its huge monuments.

It is the combination of two buildings which include the Museum of Ancient Iran (“Muze-ye Iran-e Bastan”, a brick revival building inaugurated in 1937), and the white travertine Museum of the Islamic Era (“Muze-ye Dowran-e Eslami”, inaugurated in 1972). It preserves ancient Persian antiquities including pottery vessels, metal objects, books, coins etc.

Building number one which is dedicated to the pre-Islamic collection consists of three halls. The three halls contain artifacts from lower, middle, and upper Paleolithic, as well as Neolithic, chalcolithic, early and late Bronze Ages, Iron Ages I-III, through the Median, Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, and Sassanid ages.

The oldest artifacts, in the museum are from Kashafrud and Ganj Par sites that date back to Lower Paleolithic. Mousterian Stone tools made by Neanderthal man also are shown in the first hall. There are also 9000 year old human and animal figurines from Teppe Sarab in Kermanshah Province among the many other ancient artifacts. Some of the museum’s permanent collections are routinely loaned to other notable museums such as the British Museum in London.

One of the important objects in the museum is one of the Salt Men, discovered in 1993 in the Chehrabad salt mines, located on the southern part of the Hamzehlu village, on the west side of the city of Zanjan, in the Zanjan Province in Iran.

These six men, dated to the Parthian (247 BCE–224 CE), Sassanid (224–651 CE) eras, and the remainder to the Achaemenid Dynasty (550–330 BCE), accidentally killed by the collapse of galleries they were working in. The head and left foot of Salt Man 1 are on display at the National Museum of Iran in Tehran. The head was very well preserved, to the extent that his pierced ear was still holding the gold earring. The hair, beard, and the moustaches were reddish in color, and his impressive leather boot still contained parts of his leg and foot.

The second building, the Museum of the Islamic Era, too started its work in 1937, includes more than 9000 artifacts. A great number of artifacts preserved here were unearthed in archeological excavations. Some were donated, discovered accidently, or confiscated by law enforcing authorities and trusted with this or other museum departments. Including among collections preserved here are:

Bazargan Collection (17 artifacts from Loristan and 48 from Historic Periods)

Mohsen Forughi Collection (101 artifacts from Loristan and 105 from Historic Periods)

Stalkh Jan Collection (25 artifacts from Historic Period)

The ground floor of the newer building is dedicated to contemporary exhibitions of the museum’s collections, with mainly archaeology themes. The temporary exhibition galleries feature two or three exhibitions each year. These temporary exhibitions usually run for one to two months.

Source: Oruj Travel

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