ABOVE: detail from Javad Hamidi’s Still Life (1990), part of the permanent collection at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

Dr. Ali Reza Sami Azar, whose sudden departure from the directorship of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art we noted in March (and misspelled his name*, we sheepishly add), has returned. The Art Newspaper has posted an interview with Sami Azar about why he left in the first place, and why he’s coming back. In Iran, the taste in art apparently swings conservative—shocking, we know—and Sami Azar had the ministry of culture breathing down his neck at every turn. Instead of putting up with it or compromising his curatorial vision, he decided to walk away.

His return, he says, can be credited to the community of contemporary artists in Iran who stirred up a ruckus with the minister of culture and asked the ministry not to accept Sami Azar’s resignation. The interview skips over the next part of the story—did the ministry ask him back? Did he retract his resignation after being persuaded by the coalition of artists?—but the ending seems to be a happy one. There’s a presidential election around the corner, however, and Sami Azar seems less than optimistic about the outcome.

(* - we used the spelling as it appeared in the Iranian newspaper, which seems, like, totally reasonable.)

LINK: The Art Newspaper > Interview with Dr. Ali Reza Sami Azar