The Monir Museum set to open in Tehran

Film still from Monir (2016), directed by Bahman Kiarostami and produced by Leyla Fakhr. Courtesy of the artist and The Third Line. 

A true doyenne of Iranian art, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian deserves all the recognition and celebration she has been getting in recent years. Now in her 80s and still practicing, Farmanfarmaian is best known for her mirror mosaic works that reference ancient Islamic art and geometry as well as her work with glass in both two and three dimensions. 

Next week, The Monir Museum will open its doors in the historic Negarestan Museum Park Gardens in Tehran and the institution will be home to over fifty works from Farmanfarmaian’s personal collection. The permanent display will feature wall-based panels and free-standing works, drawings, original carpets and jewellery. Her work is characterised by incredible intricacy and interplay between traditional materials and unexpected shapes. She is famously inspired by the geometric, mirrored patterns in mosques in Iran and particularly, Shiraz and so, her work concentrates on stunning glass and mirror creation sthat recreate the movement and fluidity she saw in the mosque.

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Lightening for Neda, 2009, Queensland Art Gallery, Installation View. Courtesy of the artist and The Third Line.

It will also include work from Heartaches - a series of sculptural boxes made of mixed collages and arrangements of photographs, prints and various objects and was made in New York in the 1990s. These 25 intimate small-scale sculptures were primarily made after the loss of her husband, and draw inspiration from all the places, faces and paraphernalia that at some stage in her history were associated with a happy family life.

* The Monir Museum opens on December 15, 2017 with an opening ceremony from 4-7pm