TEHRAN-The chairman of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts of the Philippines (NCCA) Victorino Mapa Manalo paid a visit to the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art on October 21 and hailed the Iranian calligraphy works displayed there at an exhibition and the treasured collection of artworks kept at the museum.

He described the works of Iranian calligraphy as a very delicate and beautiful art and praised its evolution from the Qajar period to the contemporary era, ISNA reported on Saturday.

On the occasion of the National Calligraphy Week in Iran, October 13 to 19, an exhibition titled “The Pioneers of Calligraphy” opened at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA) on October 14.

A retrospective of one hundred years of Iran’s calligraphy evolution, the exhibition showcases over 100 works by 70 artists including Mohammad-Reza Kalhor, Gholam-Hossein Amirkhani, Mohammad Ehsaei, Yadollah Kaboli, Asadollah Shirazi, Hossein Zenderoudi, Reza Mafi, Faramarz Pilaram, and Nasrollah Afjei among others.

Along with the artworks on display at the “The Pioneers of Calligraphy,” a number of documents as well as calligraphy supplies and tools related to the master calligraphers are also on show.

The Filipino official also visited the collection of Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art and said: “It has many masterpieces of modern and contemporary artists of the world, some of which are among the most important and influential works of art”.

The TMoCA owns an impressive collection of artworks by great Iranian artists including Manoucher Yektai, Sohrab Sepehri, Mansour Ghandriz, and Nasser Assar as well as western artists such as Andy Warhol, Claude Monet, Jackson Pollock, Francis Bacon, Pablo Picasso, and Mark Rothko, among others.

Established in 1977, the museum has more than 4,000 items that include 19th and 20th century’s world-class Iranian, European and American paintings, prints, drawings and sculptures. Being the biggest collection of western art in the eastern world, it includes works from almost all artistic periods and movements.

Referring to the special and unique architecture of the museum, Victorino Mapa Manalo, compared it with the buildings of the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, while having elements of traditional Iranian architecture.

He expressed hope that the museums of the two countries can cooperate in near future.

The museum was designed by Iranian architect Kamran Diba who employed elements from traditional Persian architecture. The building itself can be regarded as an example of contemporary art, in a style of an underground Guggenheim Museum. Most of the museum area is located underground with a circular walkway that spirals downwards with galleries branching outwards. Western sculptures by artists such as Ernst, Giacometti, Magritte and Moore can be found in the museum's gardens.

Photo: Victorino Mapa Manalo (second L) visits Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art on October 21, 2023.

SS/SAB