Epic Iran at the V&A preview - the true story of a crucible of culture

Perhaps it’s not the best time for an exhibition on Iran. Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe is among several Iranians with British connections to be detained there. The worst conflicts in the region are proxy wars between Iran and Saudi Arabia/UAE. For all that, the V&A is kicking off its return to business with Epic Iran, a blockbuster of a show spanning 5,000 years. The last time there was anything on this scale was an enormous Royal Academy exhibition back in 1931.

Yet there’s a case for saying that precisely because there is a such a gulf between Iran and the West, this exhibition is needful and timely. Tim Stanley, curator of the Islamic section, says that “obviously what we’re trying to do is restate the history of Iran as a great centre of art and design and culture generally rather than doing anything overtly political.” John Curtis, curator of the pre-Islamic exhibits, observes: “there’s a big appetite in this country for knowing more about Iran. It’s true that on the political stage Iran has an unfortunate reputation, but everyone who has been to the country will know people are warm and friendly and anxious to make contacts with the West. People want to see the positive side of Iran”.

And what this exhibition does is tell the story of the country over time, from the earliest period – there’s an adorable figurine of a man with pointy ears and turned up shoes from 3,200BC – to the present day, showing the continuities and discontinuities of this great civilisation. The story is told through objects as various as a bird -shaped board game from 2,500 BC, a fabulous gold armlet from the famous Oxus treasure with two winged griffins, beautiful textiles rich in Zoroastrian imagery and an exquisite fourteenth century manuscript of a Persian romance with full page illustrations. There’s an architecture section too, including vivid ceramic tiles for the spandrels of an arch from a seventeenth century palace in Isfahan. One of the reasons we rarely get the big picture, at least in London, is that different collections display different facets of the culture; in the V&A, Iran features in its Islamic gallery, while the British Museum, it’s included in the antiquities of the Middle East.

But politics does play a part in this exhibition because of the sanctions on Iran imposed by the Trump government. That made it impossible to obtain insurance for artefacts sent out of the country, so there aren’t items from the National Museum, though pieces are reproduced in the catalogue. “The exhibition would have been even richer with that”, says Curtis, “but there is enough”. As Stanley says, “it’s complex putting on an exhibition in this environment”. But by virtue of loans from other institutions, as well as the V&A’s own holdings, it gives the whole story of Iran and its culture.

Actually, it’s remarkable that we can talk about Iran as an historic entity at all, given it lost its political identity between 651, when Muslim forces conquered the country, and 1501 when the Safavid dynasty began, but due in part to its distinctive language, it survived. As Stanley observes, “In this exhibition we recognise something called Persian art and design that carries on from the eleventh century…it gets spread; it is influential from the Balkans to the Bay of Bengal. Rumi, the great poet, wrote in Persian. Just because this proxy war is going on, it doesn’t mean that you should ignore the great cultures of Persia. Iran is an important place.”

I think they should just call Iran Persia throughout; Persia conjures up the Arabian Nights, beautiful carpets, exquisite manuscripts and fine poetry and the Rubiyyat of Omar Khayyam. Ina Sarikhani Sandmann, curator of the modern bit of the exhibition, however, says firmly that “Iran is Iran to Iranians”. Well, since the thirteenth century, anyway.

The V&A is especially apt for this exhibition. “It’s a story that’s very important for the V&A”, says Stanley. “We started collecting Persian art since the nineteenth century, especially the 1870s. It’s one of the world’s great collections of Persian art. Rupert Murdoch Smith did a great deal: he was an engineer who was involved with significant archaeological expeditions, and in Persia he helped build the telegraph system through Iran. He was an influential figure and became purchasing agent for the V&A. That put us at the forefront of collecting.” Still, many important items ended up with the British Museum because of the perception that it dealt with antiquities, whereas the V&A covered art and design.

A big Iran exhibition is overdue, because there have been extraordinary archaeological discoveries since the 1960s that have revolutionised our understanding of Iran’s place in the ancient world – some quite recent. As Curtis observed, “when the concept of the cradle of civilisation was worked out between the world wars [it located the origin of civilisation around Mesopotamia, in present day Iraq], Iran was seen as second class – the Fertile crescent didn’t include Iran. Now it certainly would. There were great discoveries from the Royal Cemeteries of Ur from 2,500 BC and now we can see that sites from eastern Iran produced comparable material”. There are some fine early pieces in the exhibition, including a lively bronze axe head with wrestlers, which dates from 2,250 BC.

But the centrepiece of the show is the Cyrus cylinder, from the British Museum. It’s frankly unprepossessing but it documents how Cyrus, having seen off Nebuchadnezzar and captured Babylon (remember the writing on the wall in the Old Testament Book of Daniel?), allowed the inhabitants of the city “to walk peaceably” and conquered peoples to take their idols back home – cue for the Jews to return to Jerusalem from exile. Persepolis, one of the great cities of the ancient world, dates from this period and some of its friezes are strikingly lively. In fact, there’s a revolutionary case for suggesting that the Parthenon friezes were done under Persian influence rather than the other way round. They would have been colourful, like Gothic cathedrals; here Victorian casts are coloured to give an idea of their showiness.

From a cultural point of view, it was perhaps fortunate that Iran took on a Shi’ite Muslim identity after the Islamic conquests. “There are constraints by virtue of Islam”, observes Stanley, “but not so many as in other parts of the Middle East. So you get lots of figurative depictions in the manuscripts.” Among the loveliest here are the manuscripts of the Book of Constellations, for horoscopes, and the Book of Kings, a dramatic account of the Persian past written around the tenth century AD.

One of the things that you associate with Persia, besides cats, is carpets, and there is a particularly fine sixteenth century example here, formerly owned by the Duke of Buccleuch; it probably fared better in England than it would back home where it might have been worn to destruction.

The final section, curated by Ina Sarikhani Sandmann, is given to contemporary and modernist art, and it’s salutary to see so much of modern art in an Iranian context. One notable work from 2007, The Anniversary of the Islamic Republic Revolution by Rokni Haerizadeh, reminds you of no one so much as Chagall. “Modernism wasn’t something that just happened in the West”, says Sarikhani Sandmann, “Visitors will be astonished by how engaged and critical this art is. These artists are testing questions of gender, religion and identity. It’s very exciting…This exhibition is to get to know Iran better and get to know yourself better. It restates something of what it means to be human. That’s what art is for.”

Epic Iran is at the V&A from May 29 to September 12. vam.ac.uk

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