A glimpse at Picasso and Pollock masterpieces kept in Tehran vault
It has been dubbed one of the world's rarest treasure troves of art but few people outside its host country know about it.
For decades, masterpieces by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock have been kept in the basement of a museum in Iran's capital Tehran, shrouded in mystery.
According to estimates in 2018, the collection is worth as much as $3bn.
Only a small portion of the work has been exhibited since the 1979 Iranian Revolution but in recent years, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art has been showcasing some of its most captivating pieces.
The Eye to Eye exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened in October 2024, was extended twice due to overwhelming public demand, running until January 2025.
The display was widely regarded as one of the most significant exhibitions in the history of the museum, and it also became its most visited.
The showcase featured more than 15 works unveiled for the first time, including a sculpture by Jean Dubuffet - marking its first-ever appearance in an Iranian exhibition.
From abstract expressionism to pop art, the collection at the museum serves as a time capsule of pivotal artistic movements.
Among the artwork is Warhol's portrait of Farah Pahlavi - Iran's last queen - a rare piece blending his pop art flair with Iranian cultural history.
Elsewhere, Francis Bacon's work called Two Figures Lying on a Bed with Attendants shows figures appearing to spy on two naked men lying on a bed.
On the opposite wall in the basement of the museum, a portrait of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is on display in juxtaposition.
The museum was built in 1977 under the patronage of Pahlavi, the exiled widow of the last Shah of Iran who was overthrown during the revolution.
Pahlavi was a passionate art advocate and her cousin, architect Kamran Diba, designed the museum.
It was established to introduce modern art to Iranians and to bridge Iran closer to the international art scene.
The museum soon became home to a stunning array of works by luminaries including Picasso, Warhol and Salvador Dali, alongside pieces by leading Iranian modernists, and quickly established itself as a beacon of cultural exchange and artistic ambition.
But then came the 1979 revolution. Iran became an Islamic republic as the monarchy was overthrown and clerics assumed political control under Ayatollah Khomeini.
Many artworks were deemed inappropriate for public display because of nudity, religious sensitivities or political implications.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Gabrielle with Open Blouse was deemed too scandalous. And Warhol's portrait of the former queen of Iran was too political. In fact, Pahlavi's portrait was vandalised and torn apart with a knife during the revolutionary turmoil.
After the revolution, many of the artworks were locked away, collecting dust in a basement that became the stuff of art world legend.
It was only in the late 1990s that the museum reclaimed its cultural significance during the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami.
Suddenly the world remembered what it had been missing. Art lovers could not believe their eyes. Van Gogh, Dali, even Monet - all in Tehran.
Some pieces were loaned to major exhibitions in Europe and the United States, briefly reconnecting the collection with the global art world.
Hamid Keshmirshekan, an art historian based in London, has studied the collection and calls it "one of the rarest treasure troves of modern art outside the West".
The collection includes Henry's Moore's Reclining Figure series - an iconic piece by one of Britain's most celebrated sculptors - and Jackson Pollock's Mural on Indian Red Ground, a vibrant example of the American's painting technique pulsing with energy and emotion.
Picasso's The Painter and His Model - his largest canvas from 1927 - also features, a strong example of his abstract works from the post-cubism period.
And there is Van Gogh's At Eternity's Gate - one of the very rare survivals of his first printmaking campaign during which he produced six lithographs in November 1882.
But for art lovers in Britain, the collection is out of reach. The UK Foreign Office advises against all travel to Iran and says British and British-Iranian dual nationals are at significant risk of arrest, questioning or detention.
Having a British passport or connections to the UK can be reason enough for detention by the Iranian authorities, it says.
Challenges remain for the museum which operates under a tight budget. Shifting political priorities mean that it often functions more as a cultural hub than a traditional museum.
Yet it continues to be a remarkable institution - an unlikely guardian of modern art masterpieces in the heart of Tehran.
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2 days ago
Iranian rapper Tataloo once supported a hard-line presidential candidate. Now he faces execution
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- The tattoos covering Iranian rapper Tataloo's face stand out against the gray prison uniform the 37-year-old now wears as he awaits execution, his own rise and fall tracing the chaos of the last decade of Iranian politics. Tataloo, whose full name is Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, faces a death sentence after being convicted on charges of 'insulting Islamic sanctities.' It's a far cry from when he once supported a hard-line Iranian presidential candidate. Tataloo's music became popular among the Islamic Republic's youth, as it challenged Iran's theocracy at a time when opposition to the country's government was splintered and largely leaderless. The rapper's lyrics became increasingly political after the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini and the subsequent wave of nationwide protests. He also appeared in music videos which criticized the authorities. 'When you show your face in a music video, you are saying, 'Hey, I'm here, and I don't care about your restrictions,'' said Ali Hamedani, a former BBC journalist who interviewed the rapper in 2005. 'That was brave.' The Iranian Supreme Court last month upheld his death sentence. 'This ruling has now been confirmed and is ready for execution,' judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir told reporters at a press conference last month. Activists have decried his looming execution and expressed concern for his safety after he reportedly tried to kill himself in prison. Tataloo began his music career in 2003 as part of an underground genre of Iranian music that combines Western styles of rap, rhythm-and-blues and rock with Farsi lyrics. His first album, released in 2011, polarized audiences, though he never played publicly in Iran, where its Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance controls all concerts. Tataloo appeared in a 2015 music video backing Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and Tehran's nuclear program, which long has been targeted by the West over fears it could allow the Islamic Republic to develop an atomic bomb. While he never discussed the motivation behind this, it appeared that the rapper had hoped to win favor with the theocracy or perhaps have a travel ban against him lifted. In the video for 'Energy Hasteei," or 'Nuclear Energy,' Tataloo sings a power ballad in front of rifle-wielding guardsmen and later aboard the Iranian frigate Damavand in the Caspian Sea. The ship later sank during a storm in 2018. 'This is our absolute right: To have an armed Persian Gulf,' Tataloo sang. Tataloo even issued an endorsement for hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi in 2017. That year, the two sat for a televised appearance as part of Raisi's failed presidential campaign against the relative moderate Hassan Rouhani. Raisi later won the presidency in 2021, but was killed in a helicopter crash in 2024. In 2018, Tataloo — who faced legal problems in Iran — was allowed to leave the country for Turkey, where many Persian singers and performers stage lucrative concerts. Tataloo hosted live video sessions as he rose to fame on social media, where he became well-known for his tattoos covering his face and body. Among them are an Iranian flag and an image of his mother next to a key and heart. Instagram deactivated his account in 2020 after he called for underage girls to join his 'team' for sex. He also acknowledged taking drugs. 'Despite being a controversial rapper, Tataloo has quite the fanbase in Iran, known as 'Tatalities,'' said Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near-East Policy. 'Over the years, they've flooded social media with messages of solidarity for him and even campaigned for the rapper's release in the past when he was detained on separate charges.' Tataloo's rebellious music struck a chord with disenfranchised young people in Iran as they struggled to find work, get married and start their adult lives. He also increasingly challenged Iran's theocracy in his lyrics, particularly after the death of Amini following her arrest over allegedly not wearing the hijab to the liking of authorities. His collaboration 'Enghelab Solh" — 'Peace Revolution' in Farsi — called out Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by name. 'We don't want tear gas, because there are tears in everyone's eyes,' he rapped. But the music stopped for Tataloo in late 2023. He was deported from Turkey after his passport had expired, and was immediately taken into custody upon arrival to Iran. Tehran's Criminal Court initially handed Tataloo a five-year sentence for blasphemy. Iran's Supreme Court threw out the decision and sent his case to another court, which sentenced him to death in January. The rapper already faced ten years in prison for a string of separate convictions, including promoting prostitution and moral corruption. 'Tataloo is at serious risk of execution,' Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of advocacy group Iran Human Rights, said in a statement. 'The international community, artists and the public must act to stop his execution.' Tataloo earlier expressed remorse at a trial. 'I have certainly made mistakes, and many of my actions were wrong,' he said, according to the state-owned Jam-e Jam daily newspaper. 'I apologize for the mistakes I made.' Tataloo married while on death row, his uncle said. Last month, Tataloo reportedly attempted to kill himself, but survived. His death sentence comes at a politically fraught moment for Iran as the country is at it's 'most isolated,' said Abbas Milani, an Iran expert at Stanford University. The Islamic Republic is 'desperately trying to see whether it can arrive at a deal with the U.S. on its nuclear program and have the sanctions lifted,' he said. Drawing the ire of Tataloo's fans is 'one headache they don't need,' he added. ___ EDITOR'S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at ___
Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business Insider
Lego my ego
If it weren't for the gallery assistant's haughty, dismissive tone, I probably would never have stolen the painting. To be clear, I'm not normally an art thief. My day jobs are as a civil rights lawyer and a law professor. Visual art is rarely my scene. So when my date invited me to see the Ai Weiwei exhibition in New York's Chelsea neighborhood this past winter, I wasn't exactly thrilled. But walking into the Vito Schnabel Gallery, I was enthralled by the artist's playful repurposing of — of all things — Lego blocks. The same plastic bricks that I'd used to make spaceships and castles on my childhood floor now hung up as high art, transformed into a neopointillistic reimagining of everything from Monet's "Water Lilies" to night-vision combat scenes. But it was the Warhol-esque quartet of self-portraits, with Ai's distinctive bearded silhouette reduced to four colors, that stunned me. They felt so human and so alien. I love that our brains are wired to find a clear face in such ambiguous masses of pixels. So I did something that you should never do in a New York art gallery: I asked the price. Art prices are the definition of irrationality. Quite literally, there's no inherent value, just what people are willing to pay. That's true to a degree for other goods, but rarely to this extreme. Stocks go up and down, but their price is often rooted in the expected performance of the company and other rational measures of future value. Currencies go up and down based on the fiscal prudence of their government's budgetary and monetary policy. But the art market is an ephemeral construction of hope and hype. A banana can be worth $6.2 million. A crude cartoon monkey can sell for $23 million one day and become virtually worthless the next. All that matters is what the buyer thinks. Maybe for buyers with billions in the bank, the gallery's prices were reasonable, rational. Maybe for those with art foundations and free-port tax schemes, this was a sound investment, especially from such a storied artist. I just didn't think the 30-by-30-inch sheet of Legos was worth 250,000 euros (maybe dollars are too pedestrian for art), no matter whose hand glued the blocks. Hearing the derision as the assistant named the price and added "plus tax," I felt like it was an "emperor has no clothes" moment. The picture was beautiful, but these were Lego bricks! I could spend the rest of my life in painting or sculpture classes and never be able to fabricate a Monet or recreate a Rodin. But Lego bricks? People say "my kid could make this" about so much modern art, dismissing the subtlety and nuance at the heart of so many works' beauty, but in the case of these toy bricks, I mean it literally. Seething from the assistant's condescension — his resentment at my gaucheness — I decided I would get even by using the one skill I've spent decades honing: the law. I, of course, wasn't going to swipe the art off the wall and spend between three and 15 years in prison. But what if I made a copy, not to sell (which could put me behind bars for five years for copyright infringement) but to comment on the absurdity of the inflated art market, and to question the very essence of what "authentic art" means? What if I copied the piece to write the article you're now reading, and it's the act of writing these words that helps prove the forgery was lawful? Through this legal alchemy, I could turn a crime into protected speech. I asked the gallery assistant whether it was OK to take a photo of the work. He said yes, probably thinking it was a consolation prize of sorts. In fact, it was just the first step. It took only a few minutes to crop the photo, look up the dimensions of the original, and print a full-size replica at a FedEx store. Then my online shopping spree began. For weeks, box after box of color-coded bulk Lego pieces would show up at my Brooklyn apartment. All told, it cost less than $250 (or 220 euros, for the non-Philistines). The thing I love about Lego-art forgery is that there's no guessing, no uncertainty. After I laid a transparent baseplate on top of the printout, the whole exercise simply became painting by numbers. Still, it took time. A 2 ½-foot Lego square includes 96 pieces per side, more than 9,200 pieces overall. It took weeks of trial and error to find the right colors and parts (or as close as I could get). Then I realized, infuriatingly, that for the work to hang without falling apart, I'd need to glue each piece in place, so I had to take it all apart and start again. I thought I could quickly Google what type of glue would hold the bricks best. Instead, I found myself lost down endless rabbitholes, reading diatribes from those who consider Lego Art a sin against the reusable plastic pieces and all they stood for. (Anti-glue folks: Please keep your powder dry before reading on.) Finally, last month, I picked it up from the framers: my one-of-a-kind forgery. You may think that copying Ai's work was wrong, or petty, or ridiculous. One thing you can't claim is that it's illegal. Building this work to comment on what I viewed as the farcical valuation of the original, and to educate my students and the public on copyright law is an act safeguarded by one of the cornerstones of free expression in the intellectual property age: fair use. "We often stand on the shoulders of others; we often need to copy in order to make our own points," Rebecca Tushnet, a professor at Harvard Law School, tells me. Fair use protects "uses that substantially benefit the public and that don't significantly harm copyright owners' incentives to create new works," she adds. In that way, my fake Ai Weiwei follows a long line of well-forged dissents. In 2021, for example, the Brooklyn arts collective Mschf purchased a $20,000 Andy Warhol print and then built a machine to make 999 forgeries. The group's so-called Museum of Forgeries then sold all 1,000 prints to the public, with no way for buyers to know whether they were buying a fine art "original" or a " worthless copy." There was a world of difference between the two, yet none was discernable. The group wanted to create a form of "provenance destruction," Kevin Wiesner, Mschf's co-chief creative officer, tells me, adding: "You should basically have no trust in anyone or any gallery that would try to claim it had the original of this Andy Warhol drawing." For Mschf, copying is a way to democratize art and make it more accessible. Still, he sees a real tension between artistic copying and the law, with the law slow to failing to keep up. Speaking about a Supreme Court decision in 2023 against Warhol's 1984 copying of a portrait of Prince, Wiesner expressed disbelief: "I can't believe that we're litigating this now about a silkscreen of a photograph of a person's face." Authenticity isn't just at the heart of art world valuation; it's become increasingly inescapable in much of the consumer goods landscape. Michael Weinberg, the executive director of NYU Law School's Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy, says fair use protects these complete acts of copying (as opposed to partial copies, like when a musician samples a short clip of a song). "When Google indexes a page for search, it copies the entire thing because it needs the entire thing," he says. "Similarly, if you are making a commentary about the importance of artistic provenance, your not-from-the-original-artist version needs to be identical to the original except for the fact that it comes from you and not Ai Weiwei." For me, having the piece on my wall feels like a bargain, but it raises a fundamental question about how we value art in the age of mass reproduction. If I took this piece to an auction house tomorrow, it'd be worth precisely $0. The real piece, which most collectors couldn't distinguish from mine, would sell for a tiny fortune. They're the same blocks, the same patterns, identical to the pixel, yet the valuation varies so radically. This is also my strongest legal defense for why this copy was fair use. Weinberg says: "Is anyone in the market for an Ai Weiwei Lego portrait going to buy yours instead? I think the answer is pretty clearly not. They are buying the piece because Ai Weiwei made it." It wasn't until I hung my impostor piece in my home office that I realized how it echoed so many of the same questions that Ai has raised in his work about the valuation of art. Ai came to prominence, in part, because of his work with "priceless" Chinese antiquities, painting one with a Coca-Cola logo, covering others in bright household paints, and simply smashing one 2,000-year-old urn on the ground. He has claimed art is "powerful only because someone thinks it's powerful and invests value in the object." While there's no world that I think my dinky Lego work lands within a million miles of Ai's work, there's a single thread of connection between them all: Why do we value what we value? Erin L. Thompson, a professor of art crime at John Jay College of the City University of New York system, tells me that it's never a simple question of which copying is illegal, because copying is how people learn. Instead, the legality of copying is a question of intent, she says, and "the exact same object" can be "entirely innocent in one context and then not in another." The knockoff purse that's a crime to sell online is an indispensable teaching tool in a fashion design course. The person I was most eager to ask this question to was the artist himself, and I was shocked when Ai Weiwei was generous enough to respond. To him, "all copying and imitation are neither beneficial nor harmful; they are simply one person's response to another," he tells me over email. "If an imitation does not add new meaning — whether by challenging or advancing the original concept of the artwork — then such imitation is, in effect, no imitation at all." Authenticity isn't just at the heart of art world valuation; it's become increasingly inescapable in much of the consumer goods landscape. It's everything from the dupe Birkin bag you see on the subway to the store-brand toothpaste we buy at the pharmacy. As it becomes easier and faster to copy more and more of the physical items that build multibillion-dollar brands, how much will those brands be worth? For many younger consumers, knockoffs are no longer shameful, but actually cool. According reporting from The Guardian, half of US consumers buy dupes for the savings, but nearly one in five just do even when cost isn't a barrier to the real thing. A social-media-fueled surge in imitation products — from Lululemon leggings to Bottega Veneta bags — has transformed what was once an act of economic desperation into a mark of savviness. "I think certain kids, maybe younger kids, don't care that much about if it's real or not," says Lukas Bentel, Mschf's chief creative officer. "They care about the image." Part of the reason for so much copying in fashion, in particular, is that the laws are surprisingly lax. No matter how much fashion brands may spend promoting high-end designs, beyond protecting their trademarks and logos, there's little they can do to prohibit a copycat. At the end of the day, when asked whether it's worth paying more for the "real" version, the "original" version, more consumers are resoundingly saying no. Maybe none of you reading this piece will ever end up hanging a forged artwork on your walls, but more and more of you will likely wear clothes, carry accessories, and buy home goods that aren't exactly the real thing. And as ever more forms of copying become quicker, easier, and cheaper, the army of dupes will only grow. But whether you value those items any less than the originals, that's up to you. My final question to Ai was what he thought of this whole enterprise, the copied art and this article. Sadly, my first review as an artist was hardly stellar. "On the surface, this stunt appears to be an act of non-action," he told me. "It is simply a personal journey undertaken in search of someone truly worth imitating. For me, this work holds little meaning."
New York Post
2 days ago
- New York Post
Iran rapper Tataloo, Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, faces death penalty
The tattoos covering Iranian rapper Tataloo's face stand out against the gray prison uniform the 37-year-old now wears as he awaits execution, his own rise and fall tracing the chaos of the last decade of Iranian politics. Tataloo, whose full name is Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, faces a death sentence after being convicted on charges of 'insulting Islamic sanctities.' It's a far cry from when he once supported a hard-line Iranian presidential candidate. Advertisement Tataloo's music became popular among the Islamic Republic's youth, as it challenged Iran's theocracy at a time when opposition to the country's government was splintered and largely leaderless. 6 Iranian rapper Tataloo appears in a courtroom at the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, Iran, on May 7, 2024. AP The rapper's lyrics became increasingly political after the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini and the subsequent wave of nationwide protests. Advertisement He also appeared in music videos which criticized the authorities. 'When you show your face in a music video, you are saying, 'Hey, I'm here, and I don't care about your restrictions,'' said Ali Hamedani, a former BBC journalist who interviewed the rapper in 2005. 'That was brave.' The Iranian Supreme Court last month upheld his death sentence. 'This ruling has now been confirmed and is ready for execution,' judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir told reporters at a press conference last month. Advertisement Activists have decried his looming execution and expressed concern for his safety after he reportedly tried to kill himself in prison. 6 Tataloo speaks during his trial at the Revolutionary Court on April 23, 2024. AP From a music video on a warship to exile Tataloo began his music career in 2003 as part of an underground genre of Iranian music that combines Western styles of rap, rhythm-and-blues and rock with Farsi lyrics. His first album, released in 2011, polarized audiences, though he never played publicly in Iran, where its Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance controls all concerts. Advertisement Tataloo appeared in a 2015 music video backing Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and Tehran's nuclear program, which long has been targeted by the West over fears it could allow the Islamic Republic to develop an atomic bomb. While he never discussed the motivation behind this, it appeared that the rapper had hoped to win favor with the theocracy or perhaps have a travel ban against him lifted. In the video for 'Energy Hasteei,' or 'Nuclear Energy,' Tataloo sings a power ballad in front of rifle-wielding guardsmen and later aboard the Iranian frigate Damavand in the Caspian Sea. The ship later sank during a storm in 2018. 'This is our absolute right: To have an armed Persian Gulf,' Tataloo sang. 6 Tataloo began his music career in 2003 as part of an underground genre of Iranian music that combines Western styles of rap, rhythm-and-blues and rock with Farsi lyrics. Amir Tataloo/X Tataloo even issued an endorsement for hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi in 2017. That year, the two sat for a televised appearance as part of Raisi's failed presidential campaign against the relative moderate Hassan Rouhani. Raisi later won the presidency in 2021, but was killed in a helicopter crash in 2024. Fame in Turkey, prison back in Iran Advertisement In 2018, Tataloo — who faced legal problems in Iran — was allowed to leave the country for Turkey, where many Persian singers and performers stage lucrative concerts. Tataloo hosted live video sessions as he rose to fame on social media, where he became well-known for his tattoos covering his face and body. Among them are an Iranian flag and an image of his mother next to a key and heart. Instagram deactivated his account in 2020 after he called for underage girls to join his 'team' for sex. He also acknowledged taking drugs. Advertisement 'Despite being a controversial rapper, Tataloo has quite the fanbase in Iran, known as 'Tatalities,'' said Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near-East Policy. 'Over the years, they've flooded social media with messages of solidarity for him and even campaigned for the rapper's release in the past when he was detained on separate charges.' 6 Tataloo hosted live video sessions as he rose to fame on social media, where he became well-known for his tattoos covering his face and body. Amir Tataloo/X Tataloo's rebellious music struck a chord with disenfranchised young people in Iran as they struggled to find work, get married and start their adult lives. He also increasingly challenged Iran's theocracy in his lyrics, particularly after the death of Amini following her arrest over allegedly not wearing the hijab to the liking of authorities. Advertisement His collaboration 'Enghelab Solh' — 'Peace Revolution' in Farsi — called out Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by name. 'We don't want tear gas, because there are tears in everyone's eyes,' he rapped. But the music stopped for Tataloo in late 2023. He was deported from Turkey after his passport had expired, and was immediately taken into custody upon arrival to Iran. 6 Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in southern Tehran, Iran, on June 4, 2025. via REUTERS Death sentence draws protests Advertisement Tehran's Criminal Court initially handed Tataloo a five-year sentence for blasphemy. Iran's Supreme Court threw out the decision and sent his case to another court, which sentenced him to death in January. The rapper already faced ten years in prison for a string of separate convictions, including promoting prostitution and moral corruption. 'Tataloo is at serious risk of execution,' Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of advocacy group Iran Human Rights, said in a statement. 'The international community, artists and the public must act to stop his execution.' 6 Tataloo's rebellious music struck a chord with disenfranchised young people in Iran as they struggled to find work, get married and start their adult lives. Amir Tataloo/X Tataloo earlier expressed remorse at a trial. 'I have certainly made mistakes, and many of my actions were wrong,' he said, according to the state-owned Jam-e Jam daily newspaper. 'I apologize for the mistakes I made.' Tataloo married while on death row, his uncle said. Last month, Tataloo reportedly attempted to kill himself, but survived. His death sentence comes at a politically fraught moment for Iran as the country is at it's 'most isolated,' said Abbas Milani, an Iran expert at Stanford University. The Islamic Republic is 'desperately trying to see whether it can arrive at a deal with the US on its nuclear program and have the sanctions lifted,' he said. Drawing the ire of Tataloo's fans is 'one headache they don't need,' he added.
