In the capital of Iran, Tehran, a collection of paintings by one of the most famous pop art artists, American Andy Warhol (1928-1987) is exhibited for the first time.
Portraits of Mick Jagger, Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy can now be viewed by any Iranian, for many of whom the opening of the exhibition was unexpected. People did not even immediately believe that an exhibition of works by the author, who was rumored to be gay, had actually opened in Iran.
“When I heard about Andy Warhol’s paintings, I thought that we were talking about some other country, but no, we have it, and this is a big surprise,” says a visitor to the exhibition.
Many of the paintings on display have been waiting for their time for decades, being in the storage of the local Museum of Modern Art, FranceInfo reports.
At the beginning of the second half of the last century, Iran was considered one of the most progressive and secular countries in the Muslim region. But in 1979, the Islamic revolution began in the country, which resulted in the overthrow of the Shah's Pahlavi dynasty. Ayatollah Khomeini began to rule the country.
Then the museum considered that the country was not up to cultural progress and art in general, and all the paintings were removed to the storerooms until better times.
In total, this museum has 3,500 masterpieces valued at $ 4 billion.
“Now we can talk openly about the culture of the West, then it was unsafe,” says amateur artist Ahmad Razavi. “I’m afraid to imagine what could have happened to the masterpieces if they fell into the hands of Islamic radicals. We are interested in Western culture and want to know as much as possible about its representatives. They would like to come to us, but they are unlikely to want …
