V&A’s Epic Iran show will focus on design and culture
MAJOR EXHIBITION WILL ALSO REVEAL INDIA’S LINK WITH ANCIENT CIVILISATION
THE vast majority of people in Britain view Iran very negatively through the prism of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the 42-year-old British Iranian woman jailed in Teheran on clearly trumpedup spying charges or the deal aimed at checking the country’s ambition to become a nuclear weapons state.
The western media has long projected Iran as an exporter of terrorism to the Middle East and beyond.
Here, in Britain, it hasn’t been forgotten that the author Sir Salman Rushdie was sentenced to death by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s supreme leader, after publication of his allegedly blasphemous novel, The Satanic Verses.
However, as I discovered during many years based in Teheran as the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent, there is another Iran, an ancient civilisation steeped in the arts – and it is this that is being presented in a major new exhibition, Epic Iran, at the V&A from the end of the month.
As the V&A emphasises, “the exhibition will offer a fresh perspective on a country that is so often seen through a different lens in the news”.
Museum director Tristram Hunt said: “Epic Iran will serve a vital purpose in enabling audiences in Britain to discover more about one of the world’s great historic civilisations.”
As for myself, in between reporting the comings and goings in a country in the throes of revolutionary turmoil, my interpreters dragged me off to the carpet museum or the fire temples of the Zoroastrian faith, which established the link with India. The Parsi community first found refuge in Gujarat in the seventh century AD by promising to be like “sugar in milk”.
As the examples of Lord Karan Bilimoria or Ratan Tata would illustrate, the Parsis may be few in number, but are widely respected because of the contributions they make.
I even had a go at learning Farsi. It helped that many words in Farsi had found their way into Urdu – khatarnak
(dangerous), for example.
I would sometimes spend an afternoon wandering around the antique shops in Ferdowsi Avenue opposite the British embassy (which was briefly overrun by revolutionary students after they had taken the US embassy). I started collecting some of the witty cartoons that started appearing outside the US embassy – the socalled “nest of spies”.
For a long time, my bedside reading was an English translation of the classic Shahnameh,
or Book of Kings. This, too, is included in the exhibition. According to the V&A, it is “the world’s greatest epic poem, completed by the poet Ferdowsi around AD 1010. Combining myth, legend, and history, the Shahnameh
provides a widely honoured and therefore powerful version of events, rooting Iran’s long history in the minds of its people.
“Epic Iran will feature a series of elaborate illustrated manuscripts and folios depicting scenes from the
Shahnameh, loaned to the exhibition from the Sarikhani Collection and British Library among others.”
On display will be works from the V&A alongside important international loans and from significant private collections, including the Sarikhani Collection.
The museum, which has been collecting Iranian art since its founding more than 150 years ago, says: “Epic Iran will explore 5,000 years of Iranian art, design and culture, bringing together over 300 objects from ancient, Islamic and contemporary Iran. It will be the UK’s first major exhibition in 90 years to present an over-arching narrative of Iran from 3000 BC to the present day. Epic Iran is organised by the V&A with the Iran Heritage Foundation in association with the Sarikhani Collection.”
It points out: “Iran was home to one of the great historic civilisations, yet its monumental artistic achievements remain unknown to many. Epic Iran will explore this civilisation and the country’s journey into the 21st century, from the earliest known writing through to the 1979 Revolution and beyond.”
The exhibition will be divided into 10 parts. The first section, for example, “introduces the Land of Iran with striking imagery of the country’s dramatic and varied landscapes... all of which have shaped the country’s social, economic and political history – and it is from this landscape that the artistic cultures covered by Epic Iran emerged over the past 5,000 years.”
It will include everything “from the Cyrus Cylinder and intricate illuminated manuscripts of the Shahnameh, to 10-metre-long paintings of Isfahan tilework, Shirin Neshat’s powerful twoscreen video installation Turbulent, and Shirin Aliabadi’s striking photograph of a young woman blowing bubblegum”.
John Curtis, co-curator of Epic Iran, said: “Visitors will be astonished by the quality and variety of objects from ancient Iran, showing it had a civilisation every bit as advanced and prosperous as those in neighbouring Mesopotamia and Egypt.”
Co-curator Tim Stanley added: “This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to look at Iran as a single civilisation over
5,000 years. Objects and expertise have come together to tell one of the world’s great stories in art, design and culture.
“In the Islamic period, political power in Iran was re-cast in many different forms, but an overarching sense of history and a deep devotion to Persian literature survived the turmoil of events. In 1501, the Imami form of Shi’ism became Iran’s official religion, giving the population a unifying set of beliefs that set them apart from their neighbours. Shared beliefs, memories of a glorious past and a joy in Persian poetry are still a vital part of life in Iran today.”
Ina Sarikhani Sandmann, associate curator of Epic Iran, said: “Contemporary Iranian art is dynamic and exciting, critically self-examining and engaged in the global world, and both intellectual and playful. The rich variety and quality, often radical and experimental and unapologetic in playing with themes such as gender, politics and religion, may surprise visitors – and helps explain why Iran’s long legacy of culture continues to be so relevant to the world today.”
■ Epic Iran will run at the V&A’s Gallery 39 and North Court from next Saturday (29) until September 12.