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Iranian women walk past American artist Roy Lichtenstein’s “Brattata” as they visit an exhibition called: “Art & war” displaying some artworks of American pop artists at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Iran, Thursday, May 7, 2026.<\/p>\n
Vahid Salemi\/AP<\/p>\n
A woman looks at “F-111” an artwork of American artist James Rosenquist as she visits an exhibition called: “Art & war” displaying some artworks of American pop artists at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Iran, Thursday, May 7, 2026.<\/p>\n
Vahid Salemi\/AP<\/p>\n
Iranian Artist Ghazaleh Jahanbin looks at “F-111” an artwork of American artist James Rosenquist as she visits an exhibition called: “Art & war” displaying some artworks of American pop artists at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Iran, Thursday, May 7, 2026.<\/p>\n
Vahid Salemi\/AP<\/p>\n
People visit an exhibition called: “Art & war” displaying some artworks of American pop artists as Roy Lichtenstein’s “Brattata” is seen at right, at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Iran, Thursday, May 7, 2026.<\/p>\n
Vahid Salemi\/AP<\/p>\n
Iranian Artist Ghazaleh Jahanbin looks at screenprints of American artist Robert Indiana as she visits an exhibition called: “Art & war” displaying some artworks of American pop artists at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Iran, Thursday, May 7, 2026.<\/p>\n
Vahid Salemi\/AP<\/p>\n
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) \u2014 The artworks are distinctly American \u2014 famed pieces in vivid colors wrestling with themes of war, violence, pop culture and commercialism. What\u2019s startling is where they\u2019re on display: In a museum in the Iranian capital, at a time the two countries are locked in conflict.<\/p>\n
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While the city’s streets are lined with anti-American billboards and posters, Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary Art opened an exhibit this week of six works by three American Pop artists of the 1960s — Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Indiana and James Rosenquist \u2013 mainly chosen for their anti-war themes.<\/p>\n
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The works come from the museum\u2019s large collection of masterpieces of American and European modern art that was acquired by the wife of the former shah in the 1970s. Most of it has been kept out of view since the Western-backed monarch was ousted by the 1979 Islamic Revolution.<\/p>\n
After living under U.S.-Israeli bombardment for weeks, the young men and women strolling the gallery felt a resonance from the works.<\/p>\n
Some contemplated Rosenquist\u2019s \u201cF-111,\u201d a collage dating to the era of the U.S. bombardment of Vietnam that critiques America\u2019s military-industrial complex with images of a warplane\u2019s fuselage, a nuclear mushroom cloud and a child\u2019s face.<\/p>\n
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Nearby was \u201cBrattata,\u201d one of Lichtenstein\u2019s characteristic paintings based on a comic book panel, this one of a fighter plane pilot shooting down an enemy craft.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerican artists have always had a really interesting way of ridiculing war, and that\u2019s always fascinated me in their work,\u201d said Ghazaleh Jahanbin, a Tehran artist visiting the show. \u201cMaybe part of it, I don\u2019t know, comes from their geographical distance from war itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reza Dabirinezhad, head of the museum, said the museum wanted the exhibit, titled \u201cArt and War,\u201d to respond to the \u201cevents unfolding around it.\u201d So it selected pieces \u201cthat were either shaped by the experience of war or created as reactions to wars,\u201d he told Iran\u2019s semiofficial ISNA news agency. The museum is government-run and comes under the authority of the Culture Ministry.<\/p>\n
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A collection acquired in the ’70s<\/p>\n
The museum\u2019s collection has a storied history. The government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi built the museum and bought up treasures of Cubist, Surrealist, Impressionist, Abstract and Pop art in the 1970s, when booming oil prices were filling Iran’s coffers and the country was the closest U.S. ally in the region.<\/p>\n
The shah\u2019s wife, former Empress Farah Pahlavi, largely selected the works from artists ranging from Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh to Mark Rothko, Francis Bacon and David Hockney.<\/p>\n
But just two years after the museum opened, the shah was toppled and theocratic rule by Shiite clerics was installed. The collection was packed away in the museum\u2019s vault, untouched for decades to avoid offending Islamic values or creating the appearance of catering to Western sensibilities.<\/p>\n
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Since 2012, the museum has occasionally brought out some pieces for temporary exhibits. The collection is believed to be worth several billion dollars. Even with Iran cash-strapped under Western sanctions, museum officials have ensured that the collection is not sold off. In 1994, Iran traded a Willem de Kooning painting from the collection for a prized manuscript of the Persian epic Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, from an American foundation.<\/p>\n
Reopening an escape from anxiety of war<\/p>\n
Museums and many other cultural activities have been shut down in Iran during the current war. A shaky ceasefire in place since early April has allowed a reopening, though Dabirinezhad said only a few pieces were put on display in case war resumed and the works had to be rushed back to safe storage.<\/p>\n
For Iranian art lovers, the reopening brought an escape from the anxiety of war and a chance to reconnect with culture.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt was a such a great thing to happen. A couple of weeks ago I was talking with my friends and everybody was talking about how much they missed visiting museums,\u201d said Jahanbin.<\/p>\n
Fears remain high that the war could break out again. Iran and the U.S. remain locked in a military standoff, with Iran sealing the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. blockading Iranian ports as they wrangle over negotiations for a resolution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis state of being undecided leaves you dazed and confused, everything is up in the air,” said Mohammad Sadegh Abbasi, one of the visitors perusing the exhibit. \u201cI hope everything ends well soon and we get a secure and calm life.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cSome of the works remind me of the scenes I saw (during the war),\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The six works will be on display until May 10, but the director said each week new ones related to the theme will be brought out of the collection for show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iranian women walk past American artist Roy Lichtenstein’s “Brattata” as they visit an exhibition called: “Art & war”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[36199,36200,36196,34,36191,36201,36195,2598,36194,36197,3284,3283,24366,36192,36193,69,5563,36198],"class_list":{"0":"post-104255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tehran","8":"tag-david-hockney","9":"tag-farah-pahlavi","10":"tag-francis-bacon","11":"tag-iran","12":"tag-iran-war-american-pop-art-museum","13":"tag-james-rosenquist","14":"tag-mark-rothko","15":"tag-mohammad-reza-pahlavi","16":"tag-mohammad-sadegh-abbasi","17":"tag-pablo-picasso","18":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","19":"tag-product-32505-ap-online-middle-east-news","20":"tag-product-33328-ap-premium-entertainment-other","21":"tag-robert-indiana","22":"tag-roy-lichtenstein","23":"tag-tehran","24":"tag-vietnam","25":"tag-vincent-van-gogh"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116539946780458310","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}