The crowds hustle and bustle through Tehran’s chaotic traffic, breathing in the exhaust-fumed air making their way to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in the heart of the city. On view, in the eye of the storm, is over 100 works of art by American, European and Iranian modern and contemporary masters. The exhibition “Eye to Eye” curated by Jamal Arabzadeh from the museum’s own, gold mine collection, is built around portraiture in modern and contemporary art.
You are in Tehran at MoCA, if Bahman Mohasses’s Head of a Man, Picasso’s Jacqueline with a Headband next to Francis Bacon’s Reclining Man with Sculpture are at your fingertips in the first section of the show, labeled Psyche and Portrait. Next hall is dedicated to Self-portrait: A Refection of the Soul, followed by the Historical Portraiture, where Kamal-ol-Molk’sNaser al-Din Shah Qajar captures the heart of the selfie-fans. The audiences spend a long time in front of Vincent van Gogh’s masterpiece, At Eternity’s Gate lithograph displayed in the Portraiture and Melancholy section – the powerful image perhaps resonates a familiar state of the human experience. If you find yourself in the presence of Henri Matisse’s Persian Woman, Andy Warhols’ Marilyn Monroe, Roy Lichtenstein’s Reverie and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Fille a l’AccrocheCoeur you are in the most popular section of the show – The Female portrait: Subject or Object?
No matter how fascinating the work of the greats on view, one may deduct that the star of the show is the crowd of visitors from all walks of life swarming the exhibition, weaving throughthe museum halls, encountering these masterpieces first hand, away from the noise and mayhem outside. The viewer leaves the show perhaps momentarily feeling that there is more to life than our everyday concerns and needs.
Never a dull moment in lovely Tehran.
Museum entry fee for general public $0.30!
Due to popular demand the show has been extended twice.