START POINT PRIZE – Prize for emerging artists

TMOCA is the acronym for the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. This institution became the central focus for Noam Darom’s project. His art research aimed to answer several questions, including: What sort of life could a collection of Western art have in the Islamic republic? In this specific case, exploring the institutional framework of art – an area that has been frequently visited in art over the past several years – took the extreme form of an espionage scandal. It seems that the risk and adventure that was undertaken has restored seriousness this to this somewhat academic field. The sharp change in contexts has transformed the art museum into one of the most absurd battlegrounds in the “clash of civilisations”, which paradoxically may end up being an encouraging discovery not only for the museum, but also for art itself. (Ondřej Chrobák)