A rare, inscribed lithograph by Vincent van Gogh, 'At Eternity's Gate,' resides in the collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. The work, one of only seven surviving examples, was acquired in 1975 by Farah Pahlavi, the wife of the Shah of Iran, for the museum. It passed through notable hands, including those of US Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, before arriving in Tehran just before the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Iranian artist Kamrooz Aram is currently experiencing a significant institutional and commercial moment, with his work appearing in three major exhibitions across two continents simultaneously. Critic Aruna D’Souza highlights Aram’s ability to synthesize Islamic visual idioms with Western abstraction, creating a painterly language that transcends cultural hierarchies and treats historical narratives with a unique lightness.
Shiva Zahed Gallery has opened in Istanbul’s Pera district, specifically dedicated to showcasing Iranian contemporary art. The gallery's inaugural exhibition, "Echoes," features works by the influential artist Fereydoun Ave and installation artist Shaqayeq Arabi. The opening was significantly delayed and reconfigured after civil unrest in Iran and a communication blackout prevented the founder from coordinating with the 20 emerging artists originally scheduled for the debut.
The 60th Venice Biennale, titled "Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere," has opened to a polarized reception. Curated by Adriano Pedrosa, it is the first Biennale led by a Latin American curator and heavily features artists from the Global South, Indigenous creators, and queer artists, marking a significant departure from the Eurocentric focus of past editions.
Actor Boman Irani inaugurated the group exhibition 'To Be Continued…' at the prestigious Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai. Featuring nearly 70 works ranging from scrap metal sculptures to 3D canvases, the show brings together a diverse group of emerging and established artists. During the event, Irani engaged personally with the participants, emphasizing the role of galleries as essential spaces for creative inspiration and human development.
The author, an Iranian artist living in the diaspora, describes the profound psychological impact of the ongoing war on her homeland. She experiences a constant state of displacement and terror, feeling tethered to Tehran through news of bombings in the Alborz Mountains, which transforms her sense of geography and home into one of anxiety and helplessness.
Multiple UNESCO World Heritage sites in Iran, including the 17th-century Chehel Sotoun palace in Isfahan, have sustained significant damage from recent US-Israeli airstrikes. The attacks shattered historic windows, doors, and decorative tiles at several monuments in Isfahan's historic center, and also damaged the third-century Falak-ol-Aflak Citadel, despite the display of protective Blue Shield emblems.
Rockefeller Center in New York has installed a new public sculpture, 'Vertical Highways V03 (2025)', by German Iranian artist Bettina Pousttchi. The work, composed of bent and battered red guardrails arranged in a tangle, will be on view in the Channel Gardens through April 17th.
"Es ist naiv zu glauben, dass Bomben Freiheit bringen"
Iranian-born artist Peyman Rahimi discusses the profound impact of his childhood experiences during the Iran-Iraq War and his subsequent mandatory military service on his creative practice. Breaking a long-held silence, Rahimi argues against the naivety of believing that military interventions or foreign bombings can bring true freedom to Iran, emphasizing that war only generates new trauma and suffering. He highlights the central role of Iranian women in the struggle for change, noting that their resilience remains the most potent threat to the current regime.
The Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg has launched two major exhibitions: a career-spanning survey of Iranian-born artist Ali Banisadr and a site-specific installation by Ward Shelley and Douglas Paulson. Banisadr’s exhibition, "The Alchemist," features nearly 20 years of work including large-scale paintings that blend abstraction with intricate, emerging figures. Accompanying this is "The Last Library IV: Written in Water," a life-sized library constructed from corrugated cardboard that explores the fragility of the written word and the impact of censorship and AI on language.
Fragilità e resistenza di un’artista dell’Iran in mostra a Roma
The Galleria Anna Marra in Rome is hosting "Assemblages," the first Italian solo exhibition of Iranian artist Sepideh Salehi. The show features works that blend collage, Japanese paper, photography, and drawing to depict Iranian women living in the United States who have shared experiences of displacement and political upheaval. Salehi’s figures often avert their gaze or conceal their faces, symbolizing a "calligraphy of refusal" and a quiet resistance against the historical traumas of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war.
“Lo straniero” di François Ozon. Un film tra estetica delle superfici e rilettura politica
Director François Ozon has adapted Albert Camus’s existentialist masterpiece 'The Stranger' into a new feature film, premiering at the 82nd Venice Film Festival. Shot in stark black and white by cinematographer Manuel Dacosse, the film departs from the 1967 Luchino Visconti adaptation by leaning into a cold, clinical aesthetic inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni. The narrative follows Meursault, an emotionally detached clerk in colonial Algiers, whose impassive reaction to his mother's death and the subsequent senseless murder of an Arab man leads to his legal and moral condemnation.
Artist Golnar Adili presents a solo exhibition at Smack Mellon in New York, centered on her family's archive of letters. The show features large-scale text-based sculptures and installations, such as 'Ye Harvest From the Eleven-Page Letter–Installation,' which transforms Persian script from her father's letters into architectural forms, alongside new plaster casts of her body. These works explore the aftermath of her parents' separation due to political exile following the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Des précisions sur les œuvres des musées français à Abu Dhabi
French museums and cultural institutions, including the Louvre, Versailles, the Centre Pompidou (Beaubourg), and the Musée d'Orsay, are refusing to disclose which specific artworks from their collections are currently on loan and on display at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. This lack of transparency occurs despite heightened regional security risks, including the threat of Iranian strikes. The French Ministry of Culture claims it is in close contact with UAE authorities to ensure the protection of the loaned works.
Photographer Rania Matar has opened a new exhibition at the Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University. The show features her work focusing on the lives, resilience, and resistance of women and girls in Lebanon, particularly in the aftermath of the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
Foundation, a prominent Ethereum-based NFT marketplace that launched during the 2021 digital art boom, has announced it will shut down following a failed acquisition by the digital art company Blackdove. CEO Kayvon Tehranian confirmed that the platform has entered a one-year wind-down phase, urging users to migrate their assets as no other viable buyers exist in the current market. The closure follows the collapse of a deal that was intended to provide long-term stewardship for the platform, which had facilitated over $230 million in sales since its inception.
Archaeologists from Poland's Relicta Foundation have located the lost medieval village of Stolzenberg in a dense forest near Sławoborze in northwestern Pomerania. The 15-acre site, identified through a combination of historical research, metal detecting, and advanced geophysical surveys, has yielded 1,500 surface anomalies and 400 artifacts, including coins and belt buckles from the 13th-14th centuries, confirming its medieval origins. Radiocarbon dating places the height of its activity in the 14th century.
Iranian archaeologists Sepideh Maziar and Mehrnoush Soroush have launched an interactive online map to document and geolocate cultural heritage sites in Iran damaged by military strikes. The map, hosted by the University of Chicago's CAMEL Lab, currently lists 69 verified sites, including the historic Sa'dabad Palace complex in Tehran, and is updated as new information becomes available.
Guardian Australia's picture editor Carly Earl selected the publication's top three photographs for March, highlighting a total lunar eclipse, the Iranian women's football team's tense departure, and a portrait of a man displaced by Cyclone Narelle. The monthly series provides insight into the craft of photojournalism, showcasing the technical skill and narrative power behind compelling images while elevating the work of Australian photographers and the stories they capture.
The Guardian's picture editors curated a global selection of photographs from March 24, 2026. The images depict scenes of conflict, including a distraught woman in Beirut after an Israeli airstrike, rockets fired from Lebanon towards Israel, an Iranian missile embedded in the West Bank, and damage in Tel Aviv from a missile barrage. Other photos show people sheltering in Kyiv during an air raid and firefighters in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine.
The seventh edition of Tuwaiq Sculpture will take place in Riyadh from January 12 to February 22, 2026. The annual public art symposium will bring 25 international artists to Tahlia Street to create large-scale sculptures on-site using local granite and reclaimed metals, with all finished works entering the permanent Riyadh Art collection for installation across the city.
The Neelam Cultural Centre and Neelam Arts Collective have launched "The Whole Story," a significant Dalit art exhibition at the Lalit Kala Akademi in Chennai. Featuring works by 36 artists from across India, the show is a cornerstone of the fifth Vaanam Art Festival held during Dalit History Month. The exhibition showcases a diverse range of visual practices—from Yuvadharani’s multidisciplinary pieces to S Venkatesan’s explorations of urban displacement—all centered on themes of caste, memory, and resistance.
Oltre le armi. La forza sociale come vera difesa nel Golfo Persico
Journalist and observer perspectives highlight that Iran’s geopolitical resilience against international military pressure stems from its vibrant middle class and deep-rooted historical identity rather than just its arsenal. Observations from travels across Iranian cities like Tehran, Shiraz, and Isfahan reveal a society deeply engaged with its own culture, frequenting museums, cafes, and archaeological sites despite political isolation and a lack of foreign tourism.
Photographer Chris Perani creates hyper-detailed images of insect wings using an extreme macro photography technique. His series, Wings, captures the intricate, often invisible details of bee, wasp, damselfly, beetle, and butterfly wings by taking up to 2,000 photos of a single specimen and digitally stacking them for unprecedented clarity.