Farairan’ Choice Shirin Neshat

I appreciate beauty as a way to neutralize violence.

Shirin Neshat was born in Qazvin, Iran in 1957. She was sent to the United States to complete her education inn 1974, at the age of seventeen. After receiving a BA from the University of California at Berkeley in 1983, Neshat moved to New York, where she soon began working at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, an interdisciplinary alternative space in Manhattan. Though Neshat had studied art in college, her arrival in New York commenced a hiatus from art-making until 1993, when she made her first trip back to Iran.

Neshat’s earliest works were photographs, such as the Unveiling (1993) andWomen of Allah (1993–97) series, which explore notions of femininity in relation to the ruling politics and militancy in her homeland. Her subsequent video works departed dramatically from overtly political content or critique, in favor of more poetic imagery and narratives. Her first video installations—the trilogy comprising Turbulent (1998), Rapture (1999), and Fervor (2000)—utilize dual video screens to portray abstract oppositions based around gender and society, the individual and the group. While these works hint at the restrictive nature of Islamic laws regarding women, they deliberately open onto multiple readings, reaching instead toward universal conditions. Other videos, such as Soliloquy (1999), Possessed (2001), Pulse(2001), and Tooba (2002), along with the film Passage (2001), have expanded upon this formula, presenting similarly ambiguous narratives.

2008-Faezeh

Collaboration has played an important role throughout Neshat’s career; singer and composer Sussan Deyhim and cinematographer Ghassem Ebrahimian have contributed to many of her works, while Passage was a joint project with the composer Philip Glass. In 2003 the Screenwriters Laboratory of the Sundance Institute helped Neshat to develop and begin production on the feature film Mahdokht (2004), an adaptation of Shahrnush Parsipur’s novel Women Without Men. Since 2003 Neshat has continued to probe the central themes (religion, violence, madness, and gender) and characters in Women Without Men through photographic series like Zarin (2005) and the film Faezeh (2008).

Since her first solo exhibition, at Franklin Furnace in New York in 1993, Neshat has been featured in solo exhibitions in various countries of the world and has participated in several biennials and also international film festival, including Cannes film festival in 2008.
Her last exhibition, Games of Desire series took place in December 2012 in which she sheds light on the life of elderly Laotian women, living under a mitigation of tradition in a globalised world. The artist’s expression and her use of space puts the audience right in the heart of the couple’s interaction, compelling one to examine his own perceptions of Love, Sexuality and Age.

“Poetically speaking, I thought it could be beautiful to connect the plight of the women with the plight of the country. They are looking for the same thing: democracy, change, freedom. So it is an allegorical story.”

In an interview with Carol Becker, Neshat says: … a lot of people have accused me, even Iranian people, saying that I use the veil or other ideas as a way of exoticizing the subject or making purely aesthetic exercises and I’m saying well of course, I am an artist, aesthetic concerns are fundamental to what I do, but the question of orientalization is not my problem in that women in that part of the world actually wear the veil and the question of orientalization is a Western concern. For me, the mystery is built out of those two differences. Again, when Zarin was in the bathhouse, I made the set so that it looks like an Orientalist painting, partly because I thought how often do you have an anorexic woman who appears in an Orientalist picture? In other words, I was very conscious of both averting the ideas of stereotypes while playing with them, trying to deconstruct and construct the text and image at the same time.

2012 Shahnameh (Epistle of Kings)

I am a strong believer that I am the captain of my own ship, and as long as I’m clear about which way I’m going, I’ll take all the good and bad that comes with it. And I have to say, I’ve made mistakes in collaboration, or making work that is not so strong, and that’s OK, because the fundamental thing about the process of being an artist is failure. That you have to learn to accept that you are going to fail. It is similarly important for your critics, your audience, and your peers to understand that failure is part of growth. There is nothing wrong with failure. You fail or fall, and then you pick yourself up again. It’s that very process that is what really counts in the end.

Among the many awards Neshat has won are the First International Prize at the Venice Biennale (1999), the Grand Prix at the Kwangju Biennale (2000), the Visual Art Award from the Edinburgh International Film Festival (2000), the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography in New York (2002), the ZeroOne Award from the Universität der Künste Berlin (2003), the Hiroshima Freedom Prize from the Hiroshima City Museum of Art (2005), and the Lillian Gish Prize in New York (2006).

In 2010 Neshat was named Artist of the Decade by Huffington Post critic G. Roger Denson, for “the degree to which world events have more than met the artist in making her art chronically relevant to an increasingly global culture,” for reflecting “the ideological war being waged between Islam and the secular world over matters of gender, religion, and democracy,” and because “the impact of her work far transcends the realms of art in reflecting the most vital and far-reaching struggle to assert human rights.”

Sources:

http://www.ted.com/speakers/shirin_neshat.html
Britta Schmitz http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/nafas/articles/2005/neshat
Arthur C. Danto http://bombsite.com/issues/73/articles/2332

Born 1957, Qazvin, Iran

Lives in New York City

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2012

“The Book of Kings,” Gladstone Gallery, New York

2011

“Women Without Men,” Palazzo Reale, Milan

“Shirin Neshat: Soliloquy,” Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, England

2010

“Shirin Neshat,” La Fabrica Galeria, Madrid, Spain

2009

“Games of Desire,” Gladstone Gallery, Brussels

“Games of Desire,” Galerie Jerome de Noirmont, Paris

Women Without Men,” National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens

“Shirin Neshat: Turbulent,” Galleri Faurschou, Copenhagen

2008
“Shirin Neshat,” Gladstone Gallery, New York

“Shirin Neshat: Women Without Men,” Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA

“Shirin Neshat: New Works,” Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont, Paris

“Women Without Men,” ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark; Gallery Faurschou, Beijing

“Shirin Neshat,” National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjevik

“Women Without Men,” Galleri Faurschou, Beijing, China

2007

Shirin Neshat,” Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon, Portuga

2006

“Shirin Neshat,” Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo, Finland

”Shirin Neshat: The Last Word,” Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

“Shirin Neshat,” Stedelijk Museum CS, Amsterdam, NL

“Shirin Neshat,” Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam, NL

2005

“Zarin,” Gladstone Gallery, New York

Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum Für Gengewart, Berlin

Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Leon, Spain

Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan

2004

“Shirin Neshat,” Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand

2003

“Tooba” Asia Society Museum, New York

Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon, Portuga

Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam

Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City

2002

Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy

Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw

Banco di Brasil, Rio de Janeiro

Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, Denmark

“Passage,” Regina Gouger Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University , Pittsburgh, PA

2001

Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montreal,; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Miami Art Museum

Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland

Patrick Painter, Santa Monica, CA

Barbara Gladstone Gallery , New York

Kanazawa Contemporary Art Museum, Kanazawa, Japan

Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg

2000

Serpentine Gallery, London

Pitti Discovery, Florence, Italy

Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria

Lia Rumma, Milan, Italy

Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX

Matrix, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA

Wexner Center, Columbus, OH

1999

Malmö Konsthall, Malmö, Sweden

Art Institute of Chicago

Patrick Painter Gallery, Los Angeles

D’Amelio Terras, New York

Galerie Jerôme de Noirmont, Paris

Henie Onstad Artsentre, Oslo, Norway

Tensta Konsthall, Spanga, Sweden

1998

Tate Gallery, London, England

Whitney Museum of American Art, Philip Morris Branch, New York

Maison Européene de la Photographie, Paris

Thomas Rehbein Gallery, Köln

1997

Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, Slovania

Annina Nosei Gallery , New York

Lumen Travo, Amsterdam, Holland

Artspeak, Vancouver, Canada

1996

Centre d’Art Contemporain Kunsthalle, Fribourg, Switzerland

Marco Noire Contemporary Arts, Turin, Italy

Lucio Amelio Gallery, Naples, Italy

Haines Gallery, San Francisco

1995

Annina Nosei Gallery , New York

1993

Franklin Furnace , New York

Selected Group Exhibitions

2012

“Every Exit is an Entrance: 30 Years of Exit Art,” Exit Art, New York

“Half of the Sky: Visualized,” Contmemporary Art Galleries, University of Connecticut

2011

“Beyond Conventions: Reimagining Human Rights in a Time of Change,” Ford Foundation, New York

“In The Name of the Artists,” American Contemporary Art from the Astrup Fearnley Collection, Bienal Pavilion, São Paulo

“TRA. Edge of Becoming,” Palazzo Fortuny, Venice

“I Know Something About Love,” curated by Ziba Ardalan, Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London

2010

“Calder to Warhol: Introducing the Fisher Collection,” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

“ARTE Y POLITICA : CONFLICTOS Y DISYUNTIVAS,” Museo de Arte de Culiacán, Culiacán

“Exposure: Photos from the Vault,” Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO

“Disquieted,” Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR

“Diabolique,” Galierie de l’Uquam, Montreal

2009

“Bad Habits,” Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

“BAROCK,” MADRE Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donna Regina, Naples

“Being in the World: Selections from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection,” Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami

“Shirin Neshat e Shoja Azari,” Noire Contemporary Art, Turin, Italy

“The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women,” Cheim and Read, New York

“Iran Inside Out,” Chelsea Art Museum, New York

“Photographic Power and Violence, Disease, and Death Photographed,” Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland

“Typical, Clichees of Jews and Others,” Spertus Museum, Chicago; Jewish Museum of Vienna, Vienna

2008

“Prospect..1: New Orleans International Biennial” New Orleans

“Me Ophelia,” The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherland

“Stereotypes,” The Jewish Museum, Berlin, Germany; Spertus Museum, Chicago; The Jewish Museum, Vienna

“Wanderers in Contemporary Video Art,” Museo Civico, Commune di Siena, Siena, Italy

“Paixóns Privadas, Visións Públicas Collections D.O. Galicia,” Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo, Vigo, Spain

2007

“Foto.Kunst,” Essl Museum, Vienna

“Kunst Film Biennale,” Köln

“Ten Years,” Emily Tsingou Gallery, London

“So Close / So Far Away,” BE-Part Platform voor actuele kunst, Waregem

“Weltempfänger,” Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg

“After The Revolution: Women Who Transformed Contemporary Art,” Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs, Long Island City, New York

Programs, Long Island City, New York

“Border-Crossing Exercises,” Galleri Nord Norge, Norway

“Not for Sale,” P.S.1, New York

“Lights Camera Action: Artist’s Film for the Cinema,” Whitney, New York

2006

“Kapital,” Kent Gallery, New York

“Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection,” Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki

“A Selected State,” emily Tsingou gallery, London, England

“Reverence,” Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York

2005

“Translation,” Palais de Tokyo, Paris

“Remapped Realities,” Eyebeam, New York

“Some Stories,” Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria

“Beauty, House of World Culture, Berlin

“Important, Modern and Contemporary Art,” Gary Nader, Miami, Florida

“Figure It Out,” Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York

2004

“Non Toccare La Donna Bianca:, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo per l’Arte,Turin

Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico

“In Bed”, Toyota Art Museum, Japan

“From Bonifatius to Beuys,” Kunsthalle Erfurt, Germany

“Monument to Now,” Deste Foundation, Athens

Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran, Iran

“The Parallell World of Marrakech,” Lille 2004, France

“Transculture,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens

”Far Near Distance,” House of World Culture, Berlin

“Masterpieces from the museum of Contemporary Art”, Chicago; Villa Manin Center of Contemporary Art, Udine, Italy

2003

“Bill Viola and Shirin Neshat,” The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia

“Moving Pictures,” Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain

“Fantasies of the Harem and the New Sherezades,” Centre de Cultura Contemporania, Barcelona

“Elsewhere,” UCLA Fowler Museum, Los Angeles

“The Natural Cosmos,” Staadtische Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany

“Imagining Prometheus,” Palazzo della Ragione, Milan

“Nouredine Amir,” ModeMuseum, Antwerp, Belgium

“Films of the Iranian Diaspora,” Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago

“Armour:The Fortification of Man,” Foundation Fort Asperen, Acquoy, The Netherlands

“ICP Triennial of Photography and Video,: International Center of Photography, New York

2002

“Diversions,” Contemporary Art Museum, Baltimore

“Synopsis II-Theologies,” The New Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens

“Alter Ego,” Jean-Gabriel Mitterand Galerie, Paris

“Recent Acquisitions,” Solomon R. Guggeheim Museum of Art, New York

The Beauty of the Evil,” De Zonnehof, Amersfoort, The Netherlands; Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany

“Picturing Ourselves,” Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA

“Moving Pictures,” Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York

“Visions from America,” Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

“Iconos Metropolitanos,” Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires, Argentina

“New Art,” Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Iran

“Real Life,” Tate St. Ives, Cornwall, England

2001

“Galerie Farschou, 1986-2001,” Galeri Farschou, Copenhagen, Denmark

“Fervor,” Tensta Konsthall, Spanga, Sweden

“Black + White,” Blains Fine Art, London

“New Acquisitions from the Dakis Joannou Collection,” Deste Foundation, Centre for Contemporary Art, Athens

Beyeler Foundation, Basel, Switzerland

Biennial de Valencia, Valencia, Spain

French Institut, Rabbat, Morocco

Croatian Photographic Union, Croatia

“Arte Contemporaneo Internacional,” Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City

“The Beauty of the Evil,” Armando Museum, Amsterdam

2000

“Corpo Chimico,” Cá di Fra, Milan, Italy

“Photography Now: An International Survey of Contemporary Photography,”

Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, Lousiiana

“State of the Art: Recent Gifts and Acquisitions,” Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

“Erresitentziak/Resistencias,” Koldo Mitxelena, Donostia-San Sebastian

The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh

Lyon Biennial, Lyon, France

“La Beauté in Avignon,” Avignon, France

“Continental Shift,” Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany

Biennale of Sydney, Australia

Kwangju Biennale, Kwangju, Korea

Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

“Outbound. Passages from the 90’s,” Contemporary Art Museum, Houston

“Greater New York. New Art in New York Now,” PS1, New York

“Contact: A 90’s Journal,” Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston

Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany

“THE END: An Independent Vision of Contemporary Culture, 1982-2000,” Exit Art, New York

1999

“Heaven: An Exhibition That Will Break Your Heart,” Tate Gallery Liverpool, England

“Zeitwenden: Rückblick und Ausblick,” Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany

“Shirin Neshat: Rapture/ Pipilotti Rist: Sip My Ocean,” The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia

Voiceovers,” Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

“Project 70: Shirin Neshat, Simon Patterson, Xu Bing,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

“My Culture? My Self. Lee Friedlander, Gerhard Richter, Christian Boltanski, Shirin Neshat,” Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation, Toronto, Ontario

“La Biennale di Venezia,” Venice, Italy

“Exploding Cinema,” Rotterdam Film Festival, Boijman Museum, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

“Unfinished History” by Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

“Video Cultures” ZKM/Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe, Germany

“La Ville, Le Jardin, la Memoire” Villa Medici, Rome, Italy

“Global Art Rheinland 2000,” Ludwig Museum, Köln, Germany

“SITE SANTA FE: Looking For A Place,” Santa Fe

“Zeitwenden-outlook into the next millennium,” Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany

“Heavenly Figure,” Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany

1998

“Unfinished History” Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

“In The Detail” Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich, Germany

“7 th Summer of Photography,” Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp, Belgium

“Mar de Fondo” Roman Theatre of Sagunto, Valencia, Spain

“Vanessa Beecroft & Shirin Neshat,” Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna, Italy

“Maschile Femminile e oltre” Palazzo Branciforte, Palermo, Italy

“Mostrato” Pescara, Italy

“ECHOLOT” Museum Fridercianum Kassel, Germany

“Transatlantico” Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Canary Islands, Spain

“A Noir,” Triennale di Milano, Italy

“Interference,” Comunidad de Madrid, Spain

“Genders and Nations: Reflections on Women in Revolution” Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

“5 Th International Istanbul Biennale: On Life, Beauty, Translations and OtherDifficulties” Istanbul, Turkey

“2 nd Johannesburg Biennale 1997, Trade Routes: History and Geography” Johannesburg, South Africa

“Unbeschreiblich Weiblich” Fotomanifestatie Noorderlicht, Groningen, Holland

1997

“Triple X: Contemporary Investigating Arts,” International Art Festival, Amsterdam, Holland

“Der Rest der Welt” Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt, Berlin, Germany

“International Art Festival City of Medellin,” Medellin, Columbia

“Foto text/text foto” Museum of Modern Art, Bolzano, Italy

Frankfurt Kunstverein, Germany

“Le Masque et le Miroir” Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

“Jurassic Technologies Revenant, Sydney Biennial” Australia

“Le Masque et le Miroir” Rencontres

Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France

“Inclusion/Exclusion” Kunstlerhaus, Graz, Austria

“Radical Images: Austrian Triennal of Photography 1996,” Neue Galerie; Kunstlerhause, Graz, Austria

Kunsthalle Szombathely , Hungary

“Interzones” Kunstforeningen Gl. Strand, Copenhagen, Denmark

Uppsala Konstmuseum, Uppsala, Sweden

“Ghostwriter” (a project in collaboration with Jamielie Hassan), Mercer Union, Toronto,Ontario

“Group Exhibition,” Haines Gallery, San Francisco

“Auf Den Leib” Kunsthalle, Vienna

“Gallery Artists,” Galerie Lumen Travo, Amsterdam, Holland

“Imaginary Beings” Exit Art, New York

Video Installation commissioned by Creative Time for Anchorage, Brooklyn Bridge, New York

1995

“Orientation,” USA participation, Istanbul Biennial 95, Turkey

“Transculture” Venice Biennial 95, Venice

Contemporary Art Museum, Okayama, Japan

“Campo ‘95” Venice Biennial 95, Italy

Fondazione Sandretto Rebaudengo Per L’Arte, Turin, Italy

“It’s How You Play the Game” Exit Art, New York

1994

“Three New Photographers,” Haines Gallery, San Francisco

“Revolving Histories,” SF Camerawork, San Francisco

“Selection from the Artists File” Artists Space, New York

Labyrinth of Exile: Recent Works by Four Contemporary Iranian Artists,” Fowler

Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, Los Angeles

“Fever,” Wexner Center, Columbus, Ohio

“Beyond the Borders: Art By Recent Immigrants,”The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx

1993

“The Office: History, Fantasy and Irregular Protocols,” site-specific installations in an abandoned Wall Street office building, organized by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in New York

1990

“Fever” Exit Art Gallery, New York

Multi Media Performance

2003

Logic of the Birds,” Ortigia Festival, Syracuse, Siclily, July 25 – 27

2002

“Logic of the Birds,” Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN , June 20-23

“Logic of the Birds,” Lincoln Center, New York, July 12-13

“Logic of the Birds,” ArtAngel, London, November 7-17

2001

Logic of the Birds (Phase One),” The Kitchen, New York

Film Screenings

2010

“ Women Without Men,” Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

“ Women Without Men,” Sundance Film Festival, Utah

“Women Without Men,” International Rotterdam Film Festival, Netherlands

“Women Without Men,” New Directors/New Films, New York

2009

Premier of “Women Without Men” at the 66 th Venice Film Festival, Italy

“Women Without Men,” London Film Festival, London, England

“Women Without Men,” Viennale Film Festival, Vienna, Austria

“Women Without Men,” KunstFilm Biennale, Cologne

“Women Without Men,” Dubai International Film Festival, Dubai

2008

18th Annual Celebration of Iranian Cinema, UCLA Film Archive, California

2007

KunstFilm Biennale, Cologne

International Incheon Women Artists’ Biennale, South Korea

Istanbul Film Festival, Istanbul

2006

Florida Golf Coast University

Art Tower-Mito, Japan

Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany

Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno-CAAM, Spain

Creative Time Inc, New York

2003

Sundance Film Festival, Salt Lake City

Smithsonian Institution, Freer and Sackler Galleries, Washington D.C.

UCLA Film and Television Archive, Los Angeles

Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago

Tribeca Film Festival, New York

Athens International Film Festival

Edinburgh International Film festival

Kunst Film Biennale, Cologne

2002

Locarno Film Festival, Switzerland

Dans Le Cadre Du Festival International De Films De Fribourg, Centre D’Art Contemporain Kunsthalle, Fribourg, France

“Outer & Inner Space: A Video Exhibition in Three Parts/Part Two,” Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Forum des Images, Paris

Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Athens, Greece

Philadelphia Museum of Art

2001

Chicago International Film Festival, Chicago

Francisco Film Festival, San Francisco, CA

London Iranian Film Festival, London

Virginia Film Festival, Charlottesville, VA

Pacific Film Archive Festival, Oakland, CA