Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art on BBC Radio

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BBC Radio has just issued a half-hour programme about the extraordinary permanent collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. I saw some of the collection when it was shown in the spring of 2017, after plans to send it on tour to Italy and Germany fell through. It includes some of the finest paintings I've ever seen.

The BBC programme includes the story of the museum's Bacon triptych, the central panel of which shows two men in bed together. The triptych was shown at the opening event in Tehran in 2017, but the next day, only the two side panels were there, with an empty space and two hooks between...

The museum has, by the way, just been thoroughly renovated, but remains closed because of the pandemic.

Tehran's Bacon triptych in the reserves

This is a link to the Assouline book mentioned in the programme - not, by the looks of it, a serious art book and produced without even visiting the museum. Iran's culture ministry considered prosecution, but I don't know if they eventually went ahead. It seems ironic that the book should focus so squarely on the former Empress when she herself admits, in the radio report, that if plans for exhibitions in Italy and Germany eventually fell through it was probably because her role in establishing the Tehran collection was overemphasised in the western press.

This is a link to a 2015 article about the collection, with some good photos.

This is a link to a French TV report on the 2017 exhibition (jump to 12 minutes 20).

This is a link to TMoCA's Instagram account.

And finally, this is a link to the Wikipedia page about the museum, with a list of some of the major works in the collection.

Here, just to show I really was there, are some of my own photos:





Edited in October 2021: The Economist this week published an article about the museum and its Warhol exhibition.


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