Smuggled in Suitcases and Cartons: London Exhibition Spotlights Iranian Artists Amid War and Isolation

When you have to smuggle precious art out of a war zone in airline luggage, it helps that it is painted on an old aftershave carton. An exhibition in London designed to showcase the work of artists caught in the Iranian cauldron of war faced the shifting challenges of organising shipments out of Tehran over the summer.

Most of the works were carried by hand to London by the Tehran gallerist Orkideh Daroodi, who packed them in her suitcase. Others were shipped to Oman before being sent to the UK via DHL. The exhibition almost didn’t happen due to multiple flight cancellations and delays, which meant it regularly took Ms Daroodi 24 hours to get to London. These are among the more than 300 works presented in the exhibition.

Most of the artists live in Tehran or elsewhere in Iran, but some have left the country in recent years. “There is a lot of sadness in the works,” said Salman Matinfar, AB Anbar’s founding director, who organised the exhibition with Ms Daroodi. “But at the same time you see optimism.”

Artists in Tehran face the pressures of war, renewed economic sanctions and an even more aggressive regime crackdown on dissent, and illustrations of the mountains take on new meanings. The high, broody slopes appear frequently in an exhibition of more than 100 Iranian artists, whose works are being shown at Ab-Anbar Gallery in London to shed light on the artistic activity in the country. Creativity persists despite the conflict with Israel and the US, which was launched on February 28 and has led to tens of thousands of bombs being dropped on Iran.

Finding Solace

Whatever challenges face Iran, the mountains above Tehran retain their place as a source of inspiration for the city’s artists, appearing in paintings and photography as a towering presence over the city, and also a temporary release from congested city life.

Photographer Shahrooz Mohammed shows a group of friends laughing in their car as they head out of the city towards the snowy mountain range. They are joyful scenes in private spaces, shot at angles jolted by the moving car. Karim Ghane has a more melancholic take on the outskirts of Iranian cities, drawing the people who meander in the fields or abandoned industrial sites for privacy or respite.

Painter Serminaz Barseghian imagines the iconic Damavand sleeping volcano above Tehran as fiery and active in a colourful image using bright felt-tip pens. It also appears in a work by Mohamed Ghazali, who layers translucent tape over his photographs to give it a worn effect, but keeps the mountain at the centre of the image uncovered.

Mr Matinfar hopes the exhibition can lift the artists out of the isolation they are experiencing due to war and sanctions. “We’re showing how vibrant, how active the scene is and the talents who are living there. They are excluded from the global art scene because of the sanctions and war,” he said.

Prices range from £200 to £3,000, with Ab-Anbar foregoing its commission and proceeds going straight to the artists and gallerists in Tehran. Mr Matinfar originally launched Ab-Anbar in Tehran, but he has not been back since moving to the UK eight years ago. He opened his London gallery in 2020.

Staging the exhibition was also an opportunity for him to see how the Iranian art scene had evolved, and the emerging names among the new generation. “This is a re-introduction to the scene for me. There are students who graduated in that name who made a name for themselves,” he said.

Among the younger artists is Erfan Rouhina, who has painted a series of delicate still lifes for the exhibition, including a row of dried Persian limes, famously used in Iranian and Iraqi cooking. Negin Sadaf creates abstract collages on the covers of books and tea-stained paper. Mojdeh Souri also presented Tramp with a detailed line drawing in acrylic on cardboard of a wild plant growing in the mountains outside the city.

Contemporary Iranian art was previously defined by its pioneering approach to Islamic art traditions and abstraction – such as that of Monir Farmanfamaian, who incorporated glass mosaic techniques into the postwar abstract expressionism she picked up as a student in New York. “It’s surprising for me to see less abstraction. The work is more figurative and sensitive to society. When you look at the Iranian artists of the 60s and 70s, abstraction is dominant in their work,” Mr Matinfar said.

Haunting Scenes

Among the figurative works are haunting portraits by Sajjad Salman Roghani, said to be of his friends and people in his circle, but they appear like outcasts or detainees. They evoke the trauma of a people still reeling from a thwarted revolution earlier this year, in which large-scale protests were met with a brutal government crackdown.

One revelation has been the dwindling resources available to artists as a result of economic isolation. Farid Shams Yousefi has painted portraits on the reverse of used cardboard packaging. Some of the older artists are self-taught. Tajsar Jaferi uses old quilting methods to create colourful quilts with animals and flowers. Mojtaba Vahedi, from the city of Kashan, creates elaborate scenes similar to Islamic illustrations using embroidery.

Mr Matinfar also hopes the exhibition can send a message of unity among Iranians, particularly those in the diaspora who have been divided about the war. “With these small steps together, we should show that we are together in at least some ground for humanity, for helping each other,” he said.