Iran has set sights on reaching out to the international community through a major cultural initiative that draws on the remarkable rise of its modern and contemporary art globally, both in its aesthetic appreciation and the marketplace. Although ostensibly an independent private sector initiative, the Contemporary and Modern Art (CAMA) project’s ambitious cultural outreach has the hallmarks of a finely nuanced diplomatic effort, drawing on recent gains made in the face of hostile endeavours by political rivals in the region and longtime foes elsewhere. Iran’s diplomatic fortunes underwent a transformation with the signing in 2015 of a multilateral ‘deal’ that accepts the country’s right to pursue its nuclear programme for non-military purposes but also commits it to reduced activities in the area. Nuclear proliferation is a looming reality in the Middle East. It is a reality, ironically, with far more advanced and militaritic programmes than those of Iran being pursued with impunity and international connivance elsewhere in the region. So Iran remains under special spotlight, which implies the balance can be tipped against Iran at short notice at the whim of influential foes. Despite that grim uncertainty, Iran’s cultural push is charging ahead. Opening in April, a new London gallery will bring together some of the strongest examples of contemporary and modern Iranian art as an ambitious pilot for a much wider cultural initiative that aims to encompass emerging art outside the Iranian sphere. That includes Arab art, despite frequent news media forays into fevered narratives of an Iranian bid for regional or world domination. The constituency of contemporary and modern Iranian art already is vast and widespread, both among aficionados and seriously sophisticated collectors, CAMA Curator Mona Khosheghbal (pictured) told Eastern Art Report in a bilingual Whatsapp interview from Tehran on 16 January 2018. Arab, expatriate and other Middle Eastern buyers of Iranian contemporary art now comprise significant clusters in the art marketplace. The role art plays in building bridges and forging links that reinforce the impetus for peaceful coexistence cannot be overemphasised, Mona Khosheghbal says. The new gallery in London will open 5 April with an inaugural exhibition of artists from Iran. The gallery’s choice of the opening title, Sensation, recalls previous exhibitions of same or similar name/s, notably the London Royal Academy’s commercially pitched show that later  toured to the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, and the Brooklyn...