What is our art doing in their capitals?

Why is the Western public sphere so shocked that Tehran is hosting a vast collection of Western art?

Where do priceless works of art belong – where they were created, where they were plundered or where they were eventually sold and museumised?  I have had occasions before on these pages to argue why cliche East vs West binaries need to yield to conceptions of art beyond artificial borders – that the very works of art we love and celebrate must be allowed to reimagine our geographies. Recently I was reminded of that argument once again when a new book brought the question of “Western art collections” in “non-Western capitals” back into the art and design pages of the New York Times. Donna Stein’s book The Empress and I: How an Ancient Empire Collected, Rejected and Rediscovered Modern Art was published in February 2021. It received a detailed review in the New York Times a month later.