Minimalism and conceptual art’s exhibition in Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art/Ebadreza Eslami ,TMCA director described the exhibition

Museum of Contemporary Art (TMCA) is playing host to an exhibition of minimalism and conceptual art.

Iranart: Thirty-eight rarely-seen artworks of these styles selected from the treasure trove of the museum are on view at the exhibition that opened last Tuesday.

Minimalism is chiefly an American movement in the visual arts and music originating in New York City in the late 1960s, and is characterized by extreme simplicity of form and a literal, objective approach.

Conceptual art, also called post-object art or art-as-idea, is artwork whose medium is an idea or a concept, usually manipulated by the tools of language and sometimes documented by photography. Its concerns are idea-based rather than formal.

“Those art movements that emerged in the mid-20th century had a serious attitude to art, didn’t accept the standard definition of art and mostly regarded the philosophy of art and artistic ideas,” TMCA director Ebadreza Eslami said during the opening ceremony of the exhibition.    

“It seems that these movements posed the question of whether the value of an artwork refers to its objective reality or its subjective nature,” he added.

“An important aspect of this exhibition is that it reviews the history of art and this attitude as are seen in its catalogues and advertisements,” he explained.

Eslami also announced the museum’s plans to organize similar exhibitions and launch its permanent showcase this year.

He said his colleagues and the curator of the exhibition, Behrang Samadzadegan, have conducted extensive research to find the proper way to display the artworks.

“The TMCA team is one the best I’ve collaborated with based on my experience of organizing exhibitions in other countries,” Samadzadegan said.

“This is a promising beginning to the museum’s mission to showcase invaluable artworks from its treasure trove, and I hope that we can keep these artworks alive by organizing such exhibits,” he added.

“For me as an art teacher, it’s really important to display these artworks for students, whose hearts are filled with longing for a visit to foreign art museums; thus we must appreciate the fine works of art being preserved at the TMCA,” he noted    

He referred to the exhibition’s title and said, “If minimalism and conceptual art are the antitheses of aesthetic, today we are in the synthesis period.”

The Minimalism and Conceptual Art Exhibition will run until September 18.

By:Tehran Times