A New Istanbul Gallery Is Offering An Outlet For Iran's Artists The Art Newspaper International Art News And Events

A new gallery in Istanbul has opened with an unusually urgent mandate: to give Iranian contemporary artists a visible platform at a moment when sanctions, travel restrictions, and political instability have made international exchange increasingly difficult. Shiva Zahed Gallery opened on February 28 in the Pera district, but its debut arrived under the shadow of the US-Israeli war with Iran, which began the same day.

The gallery's inaugural exhibition, Echoes, brings together the installation artist Shaqayeq Arabi and Fereydoun Ave, one of Iran's most significant contemporary figures. Ave's work is held in major international collections, including the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

For founder Shiva Zahed, the gallery is meant to function as a bridge between Tehran and the wider art world. That idea became more complicated in late December, when protests broke out across Iran after a currency crash and a communication blackout followed. The gallery had originally been scheduled to open on January 28 with a group exhibition of 20 emerging Iranian artists, all of whom had never shown outside Iran. Promotional materials were ready and the works had already been selected, but Zahed says the team suddenly lost contact with the artists.

“We couldn't get in touch with any of the artists,” she said.“Everything was prepared and suddenly we were completely cut off.”

Zahed's own route into the art world was indirect. She trained as a medical doctor at Shahid Beheshti, worked for eight years in Iran and Dubai, and moved to Turkey last year before deciding to leave medicine and pursue the arts full time. Istanbul, she says, offers practical advantages for Iranian artists: no visa requirements, fewer shipping obstacles, and an established international art scene.

As unrest intensified in January, Zahed returned to Iran to speak with artists in person. What she found, she said, was a climate of hesitation and exhaustion, with daily life shaped by speculation about war, negotiations, regime change, and further sanctions. Flights were repeatedly changed or canceled, making even basic planning unstable. Some artists feared being stranded abroad; others were too drained to commit.

In the end, Zahed postponed the original group exhibition and reconfigured the opening around artists based outside Iran. Ave, who lives in Paris and had curated the original show, agreed to take part. Arabi, based in Dubai, was a natural fit, Zahed said, because of her pioneering installation practice.

Echoes is scheduled to run through April 25, and a postponed group exhibition is now planned for May. Yet the gallery's longer-term plans remain unsettled. After President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire agreement with Iran, Zahed said the temporary nature of the truce leaves the future difficult to map. For a gallery built to counter isolation, that uncertainty is now part of the story.

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