When a museum in the Western world focuses on a problematic foreign country, it usually wants to temper the antipathy between the two cultures by going beyond stereotypes, illustrating the other culture’s “vibrancy,” emphasizing its rich past, pointing up our shared history. All of which applies to Iran Modern, an exhibition at the Asia Society of more than 100 modernist works by 26 influential Iranian artists from the 1950s to the time of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. According to Melissa Chiu, the Asia Society’s director, the show “reminds us of a time of close relations between the U.S. and Iran, demonstrates that modernism and internationalism flourished outside the West in places like Iran—which many people might consider unlikely, but we can see that Iran is a country with a strong evolving artistic tradition.”

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