Inside Dario Duran’s Initiative Connecting Iranian Artists to the Global Art World
Observer ·
Born from a moment of crisis, “Continuum: Artist Relief for Iran” has evolved into a platform that gives international collectors, curators and institutions access to contemporary Iranian art, with 100 percent of sales proceeds going to the artists.
It has never been easy for Iranian artists to circulate their work internationally unless they live abroad. The geopolitical conflict of the past year, and the sanctions that remain in effect, have made it harder still, leaving the country’s art scene paralyzed, with artists struggling not only to obtain the materials they need to create but also to secure the very means to live. Launched in August, “Continuum: Artist Relief for Iran” is a nonprofit initiative that serves as a bridge between artists based in Iran and the broader art world. More than 500 original artworks by over 200 emerging and established contemporary artists living and working across Iran are available for sale online at the initiative’s website . Participating galleries across the country have voluntarily waived their commissions so that 100 percent of the proceeds go directly to the artists.
Out of this state of emergency has emerged what many have described as an “Iranian Artsy”: a platform and collaborative network that offers curators, institutions and collectors around the world an unprecedented opportunity to encounter the rich diversity of contemporary artistic practice in Iran today.
Behind the initiative are two curators: Dario Duran , founder of Duran Art Projects, was born in Shiraz and raised in North America, and he returned to Iran to focus on the country’s contemporary scene. Mariam Rasti , an Iranian independent curator, has spent more than a decade directing artistic projects in Iran, working closely with emerging and early-career artists.
Together, the two spent months on research and outreach to assemble a vibrant, expansive selection of mostly new work spanning painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, mixed media and interdisciplinary practices. In just a few months, the response to the initiative has been incredible, Duran tells Observer over a spotty connection made possible by a brief window of decent data speed in the country. Rather than being shut down entirely, he reports, connections have been intermittently throttled, making VPNs unreliable and often blocking filtered applications such as Instagram and WhatsApp. Conditions change from one day to the next, making communicating with the rest of the world a constant challenge.
“What we’ve done through this initiative is really unprecedented. Iran, as a country and its contemporary art scene, has never had a program like this,” Duran says, emphasizing that, by the numbers, this is the largest online exhibition in the history of contemporary art in the country.
Duran left Iran at age five and grew up in Canada. After studying photography and completing a master’s in curatorial studies, he worked in fashion and art in Europe. For most of his career, his focus was on Western rather than Iranian contemporary art. “I always joke and say the only Iranian artist I knew before moving to Iran was Shirin Neshat , and that was it,” he says.
Roughly six years ago, Duran moved back to Iran, expecting to be there only a year. Instead, he stayed, collecting contemporary Iranian art and immersing himself in local scenes. “I spent all this time going on studio visits, going to galleries and collecting artwork,” he says. “I’ve built a pretty extensive collection of contemporary Iranian art over the last six years, while advising artists on how to break into the international market.”
About a year and a half ago, Duran decided to resume a more formal curatorial practice and established Duran Art Projects in Canada as a platform devoted to contemporary Iranian art. The current initiative, its first major curatorial endeavor, emerged organically during the war. “Mariam Rasti and I were both displaced from our respective cities, and during that period we were constantly speaking with artists, galleries and communities across the country. What became very apparent was that the effects on cultural life were accumulating very quickly,” Duran explains. “Exhibitions were being canceled or postponed. Galleries weren’t operating normally. Artists were losing opportunities and income, and the already difficult connection between artists inside Iran and the international art world was becoming even more fragile.”
The project began with a practical question: what can curators do when artists suddenly lose the structures that sustain their practices? At first, they imagined something modest—perhaps a PDF featuring some 30 artists in urgent financial need that could circulate among Duran’s international network of gallerists, curators, museum directors and collectors. But the idea grew rapidly after Duran wrote an open letter, sent through WhatsApp despite poor internet access, and colleagues abroad responded with offers of help. “Every single one of them got back to me. Some cried and said, ‘What can we do? We will do anything that we can to help.’ I realized the scale of this could become much larger,” he says.
Over roughly six months, the idea developed into a fully curated online exhibition. But if the project was going to take that form, it couldn’t be just about sales. By creating an online platform, the curators hoped to open a broader dialogue with the international art community and give emerging artists in Iran visibility they would otherwise struggle to obtain.
That visibility, Duran says, is producing results. “What’s extraordinary is that I’ve had museum directors and major collectors with internationally known collections, as well as curators and gallerists, reach out and tell us how lovely it is for them to see these artworks, how they would like to be connected with certain artists and how they would like to learn more about an artist’s practice,” he says. “There are so many opportunities that are coming out of this.”
The initiative involves 20 galleries in Iran, many of which can now offer their artists and programs international visibility that was previously hard to achieve. Only a handful of Iranian galleries participate consistently in international fairs. Dastan Gallery , which has shown at Frieze New York , Frieze Los Angeles , Frieze London , Frieze Seoul , Art Basel Hong Kong , Art Basel Miami Beach , The Armory Show , Art Dubai , Abu Dhabi Art and Liste Art Fair Basel , is one of the few exceptions.
Iranian artists and gallerists in the diaspora may have access to established international networks, but artists working inside the country have far fewer opportunities for direct global exposure, Duran notes. Iranian-born gallerists such as Leila Heller , who operates between Dubai and New York, as well as art professionals across the industry, have been particularly supportive, sharing the initiative with their own networks and clients. “They opened their network to this program. To see everybody coming together is beautiful.”
Exporting artwork remains a major obstacle, and Duran describes the solution, half-jokingly, as involving “guerrilla methods.” International shipping companies operating in Iran generally first move packages and cargo crates to neighboring countries such as Turkey or the United Arab Emirates, where works can enter courier systems such as DHL or fedex .
Because sanctions and flight restrictions can change available routes from day to day, the process is highly unpredictable. “We speak with the shipping companies every single day because it changes daily. Suddenly, they find an open route to fly out of Iran to Istanbul, and they tell us, ‘If you have anything, send it to us, and we can take it now.’ Then the next day they say, ‘That flight is canceled. Just wait,'” Duran explains. Often, couriers move goods overland across the Iran-Turkey border before transferring them to international shipping networks.
Buyers cover all shipping costs, and the initiative is transparent with collectors about possible delays. Delivery can take three to six months, but collectors have so far been patient, often motivated as much by the desire to support artists as by the wish to receive a work. The project has also received donated funds from U.S.-based foundations to acquire works through the initiative with the eventual goal of donating them to American institutions.
Beyond sales and visibility, Duran says artists face challenges in simply continuing to work. Art materials have become extremely scarce and prohibitively expensive. He cites analog photographer Shayan Sajadian, who traveled to Tehran in search of film but came back empty-handed after visiting multiple suppliers. “I hear this almost daily. They joke that there is a black market for foreign paints,” Duran reports. Locally produced fine-art paints are available, but many professional painters consider their quality inadequate, and imported materials, when they can be found, have become prohibitively expensive.
Yet history shows that some of the most meaningful art can emerge from extreme conditions, serving as a document of the disruptive moment, society and environment in which it is made. Artists working under constraint become witnesses to history, translating social conditions into works that preserve and interpret the reality around them.
“Artists in Iran have an enormous responsibility. They’re telling the stories that make up history,” Duran reflects. “The constraints challenge them to push against how they’re living, to open their minds and create extraordinary works.” He stresses, however, that the initiative has been careful not to reduce Iranian artists to narratives of trauma or war. It does not ask them to illustrate conflict or produce explicitly political imagery. Still, these conditions inevitably surface in the artworks on the platform, sometimes subtly. “Those artworks are made under censorship. When you take that into consideration, the viewer has to work hard to see its different layers and really understand it. As a curator, I think that’s what I’m after, at least: the real urgency.”
The plan is to keep the initiative running in its present form through December. Beyond that, its future remains open. Duran does not rule out that it could evolve into a permanent network, a sturdier bridge between Iran’s art scene and the global art world.