An exhibition in Berlin of artworks from the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art was canceled after the museum authority in Berlin said Iran had not granted export permits for any of the works to be shipped to Germany. The Tehran Museum’s collection of Western modern art is widely considered to be the most important outside of North America and Europe, and this was the first time that a show of these works was to be staged outside of Iran.

''These export licenses have not been signed for weeks and months,'' said Hermann Parzinger, president of the authority, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, in a telephone interview on Wednesday. ''Museums need planning, and they cannot keep the galleries free forever''......Continue Reading

The secrecy of the Western Art collection myth lies behind the Islamic Revolution of Iran occurred in 1979. After that date, something started to change in the country and Iran tried to get rid of the darkness of its own regime. The collection of 1500 works had been kept in locked storage over the last four decades and no one could see these masterpieces in years after the revolution. The collection featured Monet, Picasso, Warhol and Pollock's works and any significant artist from 1980’s to 1970’s. After recently announced that 60 pieces will travel to Berlin to be presented European public and US next, it was important to see that the Tehran Art Collection would be able to view overseas and establish collaborations between Iranian cultural institutions and those abroad.

Top image: Andy Warhol – Mao Zedong series of portraits in the museum vault. 

> via NY Times