While it seems that everyone with five or six spare zeroes at the end of his bank balance is opening a museum, it takes more than a private venue to have a real impact, unless one’s space happens to be located in a city known less for art than for ayatollahs. Such is the case with Ebrahim Melamed, whose 5,000-square-metre Honart art museum is slated to open in Tehran in 2008. Melamed, who was born in Iran and raised in Switzerland, has been collecting since 1995 and now owns work by Anish Kapoor, Sylvie Fleurie, Olafur Eliasson, Ugo Rondinone and fellow Iranian Shirin Neshat, among others. While Honart may showcase Melamed’s private collection, it will also bring artists from abroad to exhibit and discuss their work, creating a dialogue between Iranian artists and their foreign counterparts. Honart is located in a city of more than twelve million, with a long-standing tradition of collecting and cultural engagement, but Tehran has had little exposure to contemporary art since the Shah was deposed in 1979. Projects like Melamed’s have the potential to establish much-needed exchange between West and Middle East.