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<\/p>\nNearly 200 works by around 100 Iranian artists will go on display at Ab-Anbar Gallery in London this month, in an unusually large collective exhibition aimed at giving younger artists international exposure at a time when Iran\u2019s art scene is increasingly isolated.<\/p>\n
The organisers say A Present Tense: Contemporary Artists Living and Working in Iran, running from 19 to 26 September, is a rare opportunity for international audiences to access a large quantity of contemporary Iranian art, much of which has had limited exposure outside the country.<\/p>\n
Around 20 Iranian galleries and art spaces have taken part. For Salman Matinfar, Ab-Anbar\u2019s founding director, the exhibition is also about sustaining this network of galleries and the artists behind the work. Forced closures during the ongoing conflict have added pressure to Iran\u2019s gallery scene, which was already facing challenges, primarily due to historic sanctions. Iranian artists also face significant barriers to participating in the international art world: galleries abroad are often reluctant to represent them because sanctions complicate shipping, payments, and other transactions, while visa restrictions make travel abroad complicated. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe ecosystem includes the gallery, the artist\u2014everyone is suffering,\u201d Matinfar tells The Art Newspaper.<\/p>\n
The show grew out of conversations last year between Matinfar and Orkideh Daroodi, founder of Tehran\u2019s O Gallery, one of the capital\u2019s most established and visited galleries. With sanctions and restrictions affecting travel and shipping, Daroodi says people outside Iran frequently ask what they can do to support artists in Iran. \u201cWe figured it was best to take the works to them,\u201d she tells The Art Newspaper from Tehran.<\/p>\n
The exhibition deliberately avoids presenting a single picture of Iranian art, instead bringing together different approaches and a wide range of styles and subjects, Daroodi says. Pricing has also been selected \u201cvery carefully\u201d, Daroodi and Matinfar say, ranging from anywhere around \u00a3200 to \u00a33000, to make the works accessible to people beyond select art collectors and to give each participating gallery the opportunity to make sales.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Laleh Memaradestani, Yellow Rose #2 (2026). Memaradestani\u2019s practice involves drawing, painting, printmaking and textile art<\/p>\n
Courtesy\u00a0of the artist and O Gallery<\/p>\n
Matinfar was once part of Iran\u2019s art scene himself, before closing his Tehran gallery and opening the London venue in 2020. Ab-Anbar offered its space and waived its commission. Daroodi, meanwhile, contacted independent artists and galleries across the country, presenting them with the London proposal. \u201cThere is an impression that Iranian galleries don\u2019t work together, and this was a good opportunity to show that this isn\u2019t true,\u201d she says. She describes the response as \u201cvery special\u201d, with galleries agreeing to participate largely on trust and accepting the risks involved in shipping their work abroad\u2014including the lack of guarantee that the works will be shipped and returned safely. In her 15 years in the Iranian art business, she says she has not seen a collaboration of this scale.<\/p>\n
Daroodi believes, however, that the experience of war has played a part in bringing the galleries together and changing perspectives. \u201cThis uncertainty of not knowing what may happen tomorrow\u2014we may all die in a bombardment\u2014is a very scary thought,\u201d she says. She recalls one night during the war when heavy bombardment shook her home to the point where she thought it may collapse and she may die. \u201cThose experiences really change your perspective,\u201d she explains. \u201cThey make you think, let\u2019s take it easy, be a little less competitive, let\u2019s try and work together. We don\u2019t know what may happen tomorrow,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n
The project has not been without complications. Daroodi says the volatile situation has made getting the works to London particularly difficult and costly. Despite selecting smaller works on paper, cardboard and textile to ease transport, shipping costs have been far higher than anticipated.<\/p>\n
Matinfar hopes the exhibition will eventually travel to other major art hubs, including New York, Paris and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to show that art is a way of connecting people and this should never be stopped under any circumstances,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 200 works by around 100 Iranian artists will go on display at Ab-Anbar Gallery in London this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,9543,801,1150],"class_list":["post-849783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-exhibitions","tag-iran","tag-london"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}