'Iran is on brink of a dark age'

Lillian Swift, The Telegraph UK:

Iran is on the brink of entering another dark age under its new conservative regime, according to one of its leading artistic luminaries.

Ali Reza Sami-Azar, who recently resigned as the head of the Teheran Museum of Contemporary Art, said the cultural glasnost of the past five years had come to an end.

"We are in very grave danger of reverting back to the post-revolutionary days, when only those artists who were deemed as expressing so-called Islamic values were displayed," he said in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph. READ MORE

"In those days artists who had flourished under previous regimes were persecuted. Culturally it was the dark ages for Iran."

Dr Sami-Azar spoke out after the phenomenal success of what he called his "goodbye show" - a big exhibition of 20th-century Western art that he knew would risk offending the piety of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's new administration.

The exhibition, which included works by Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, Francis Bacon and Jackson Pollock, has proved the most popular show since the museum's inception in 1977 and will end this week.

Visitors have been undeterred by the hardline rhetoric of Mr Ahmadinejad, who last week toured Iran reiterating his campaign promise to rid the Islamic Republic of "corrupting Western culture".

But its closure, said Dr Sami-Azar, would also mark the end of the period of relative cultural freedom begun by the reformist president Mohammad Khatami eight years ago.

"It took many years for the atmosphere to become relaxed enough to show it," he admitted.

"We experienced a certain cultural enlightenment under Khatami, there was a relative freedom of artistic expression and a shift from controlling the artistic community to supporting and encouraging it. But all this will come to an end now."

The collection, which had been languishing in Teheran vaults since the 1979 Islamic revolution, is controversial not only for its subject matter but because it was compiled by the deposed shah's wife, Farah Pahlavi.

While art critics regard it as one of the most important repositories of 20th-century artwork outside Europe and North America, Iran's theocracy has always viewed it as a reminder of the nation's corrupt, monarchical past - and a generation of Iranians has grown up without ever seeing the paintings.

Dr Sami-Azar gambled that Mr Ahmadinejad's censors, who have banned the showing of Western films, would fear a public outcry if they banned the exhibition too.

Its success has shown that even some conservative Iranians disagree with Mr Ahmadinejad's vision for their country, which has also led to a ban on advertisements featuring the footballer, David Beckham, and an instruction that all male government employees should grow beards.

Among visitors to the exhibition have been women wearing all-encompassing black chadors, who have browsed works including Bacon's sexually explicit triptych, Two Figures Lying on a Bed with Attendant, which Dr Sami-Azar sent on loan to Tate Britain last year.

In the censors' one intervention, the central panel - which depicts two naked men lying on a bed - was removed by Iran's morality police.

Staff at the museum say the reaction to the exhibition has "been like a bomb".

Whispering in front of a colourful image of an American fighter jet by James Rosenquist, one attendant said: "It has upset a lot of people and caused a lot of controversy behind the scenes. The man responsible for it has now gone and we have a conservative director in his place. He will certainly not be risking a show like this."

Over the past seven years artistic societies have flourished in Iran, organising more than 100 exhibitions of their work abroad. Now, however, the country's aesthetes fear that such movements will wither or be forced underground, with dull, state-sanctioned art taking its place.

The artistic community is not alone in feeling the return to Islamic values. After enjoying a period of relative freedom, female students at Teheran's universities are being told to dress according to orthodox guidelines.

Head scarves must be worn pulled forward to avoid showing any hair, make-up must not be noticeable and the hemline of the roupoush (the regulation long-sleeved tunic) has been dropped to just above the knee.

"It is like we have suddenly gone back 10 years," complained Yassi, a 19-year-old architecture student at Teheran University, who was turned away from class last week for wearing nail varnish and showing too much ankle.

"What was considered acceptable a few weeks ago; suddenly isn't. There is a feeling among the students that things are going to get worse."

Dr Sami-Azar also fears for his personal safety. "I was instrumental in pushing the boundaries and the conservatives won't forget that," he said. "I fully expect that when they get round to it they will cook up some charges against me."