Insect images in a work that was taken out of the warehouse of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art and started to be exhibited again after 40 years caused a sensation in the country. The museum, which apologized to the public after the images of two insects floating in the work of the German artist Bernd and Hilla Becher couple went viral on social media, decided to immediately stop the exhibition and temporarily close the museum in order not to endanger other works worth billions of dollars.
SALIHA SULTAN
Tehran Contemporary Art Museum, which houses the works of world-famous artists such as Picasso and Warhol, was closed due to the insect infestation. The museum’s closure came after images of insects floating around in world-famous paintings shocked social media and went viral. Making an apology for the images, the museum announced that it was closing to deal with the bug problem.
The museum, which was built by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and his wife, Farah Pahlavi, and opened in 1977, is known to have a billion-dollar collection of Western art. The works in the museum, which exhibited the works of great names such as Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, Claude Monet and Jackson Pollock for a while after it was opened, were put into storage after the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979 because it ‘damaged Islamic values’. While some of Andy Warhol’s pictures of nudes are still hidden in the basement, much of the museum’s collection has been on display since June, after 40 years as Iran’s cultural restrictions eased. The ongoing minimalism exhibition, which featured 34 western artists, attracted great interest in the country, and more than 20 thousand art lovers visited the exhibition.
THE WORKS WERE REACHED AGAIN AFTER 40 YEARS IN JUNE
It is stated that the insects noticed by the visitors in the paintings in the exhibition in the museum are of the ‘silverfish’ species of insects that can attack the paintings and eat them. The museum officials, who apologized to the public after the images went viral on social media, stated that “the proper care of valuable artifacts is extremely worrying for everyone” and said that as soon as the invasion appeared, experts rushed to the museum and carefully cleaned the exhibits. Stating that the insects did not damage the artifact or any other piece seen on social media, the museum management added that it will be closed for two days so that pest control technicians can fix the problem. Ebadreza Eslami Koulaei, director of the museum, told Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency that experts are watching the work closely, saying, “Because when you see an insect, you should guess that maybe there is more. But there is a possibility that such events will occur when the works are taken out of their boxes to be taken to the galleries,” he said. Many of the famous contemporary Western works on display had been stored in museum vaults for decades. Iran’s Shiite clerics, who came to power in 1979, packaged their artworks and put them on the shelf in order not to offend Islamic values and not to appeal to Western sensitivities.
THE ‘SILVER FISH’ WHICH LOOKS IN THE PICTURES IS PAPER EATING
A video of two paper-eating silverfish beetles squirming under the glass of an industrial photograph taken in 1978 by German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher, one of the pioneers of the 1960s conceptualist movement, in the exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art went viral on social media. The video was watched by 1 million people.
