Famed Iran art museum closes to deal with insect infestation

Tehran’s contemporary art museum has issued an apology for temporarily closing to handle a pest infestation

Iran Art Unveiled (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Tehran’s contemporary art museum has issued an apology and temporarily closed to handle a pest infestation, raising concerns after footage of insects scuttling across world-famous work spread widely on social media.

Insects, which may attack and eat away at paintings, pose a serious threat to the American and European minimalist masterpieces now for the first time on display at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art since the 1979 Islamic Revolution ousted Iran's Western-backed monarchy.

A video went viral earlier this week showing two paper-eating silverfish squirming under the glass of a 1978 industrial photograph by influential German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher. The sighting of the wingless pearl gray bugs provoked shock and disgust on social media.

The museum apologized to the public on Wednesday, insisting that the “proper maintenance” of its prized works “is of the utmost concern to all of us.” As soon as the infestation became apparent, it said, experts rushed to the museum and carefully cleaned the exhibited artworks.

Insects have not damaged the Becher photograph or any other pieces, the museum said, adding that it would close for two days so pest control technicians could tackle the problem.

Ebadreza Eslami Koulaei, the museum's manager, told Iran's semiofficial ISNA news agency that experts were closely monitoring the works, because “when you see one insect, you should predict maybe there are more.”

“When works are taken out from their boxes to be brought to galleries, there is a possibility such incidents happen,” he said.

Many of the renowned contemporary Western works on display had been hidden in the museum vault for decades. Iran's Shiite clerics who came to power in 1979 packed away the art to avoid offending Islamic values and catering to Western sensibilities.

Iran's Western-backed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and his wife, the former Empress Farah Pahlavi, had built the museum and acquired the multibillion-dollar collection during the oil boom of the late 1970s.

The sensational art — cubist, surrealist, impressionist, even pop art — has gradually resurfaced in recent years as cultural restrictions eased in the Islamic Republic.