LANGUAGE AND TEXT: ARTISTS

Shirin Neshat (USA)

Shirin Neshat Expressing the Inexpressible

Background (b.1957)
Shirin Neshat was born and raised in Iran but moved to the U.S. after high school to study art. When the Islamic Revolution overtook her homeland in 1979, Neshat was exiled and couldn't return until 11 years later.

Practice
Working in New York, the artist’s techniques include photography and video. She composes large black and white images of women in suggestive and supine poses totally overlaid with red and black calligraphy of Arabic inscriptions attempting to address problems of identity, race and gender in a shocking way.

Postmodern Frame
Shirin Neshat intends to undermine stereotypes and assumptions by using confrontational methods in using guns in the hands of the traditionally, subservient female. This is striking because of the strong cultural and religious convention of Arabic calligraphy and the extremely powerful, patriarchal society that still exists in many parts of the Muslim world.
The text is both calligraphic and meaningful, an intertwining of message and aesthetics. It presents a direct link to the historical conventions of the Islamic world, yet in its illegibility and placement on the body, challenges that tradition.

Intentions
Neshat dealt with her sense of displacement by trying to untangle the ideology of Islam through art. The result was Women of Allah (1993-97), a photographic series of militant Muslim women that subverts the stereotype and examines the Islamic idea of martyrdom.

Artwork
Neshat Speechless (1996) Presenting powerful images that work aesthetically as well as in the strength of the symbols, Neshat also presents the personal that take the concepts into a universal realm. The calligraphy tells of a man who wishes he had died in the Iran/ Iraq of the 1980’s. The use of photography is controversial, as the Muslim faith considers it to be a form of idolatry and therefore bans it.

In 1996, Neshat began working with film, a medium in which she finds more ambiguity and freedom. She produced a trilogy of split-screen video installations, Turbulent (1998), Rapture (1999) and Fervor (2000). Filmed in black and white, these emphasise the polarities of the male/female, the east/ west and the inherent cultural dynamics within.


References

iranian.com
Good range of imagery of Shirin Neshat’s artworks

haberarts.com
Review of Shirin Neshat’s work at Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York 2001 by Critic John Haber.

gladstonegallery.com
Photographic images of Shirin Neshat’s most recent exhibition, November 2005

artfacts.net
This page provides the artist’s biographical details and curriculum vitae as well as latest exhibition links

bombsite.com
This site is a review for the magazine Bomb. The Art writer and critic, Arthur Danto interviews Shirin Neshat and discuses the artists film-making intentions.

www.absolutearts.com
Review of Neshat’s exhibition in Hamburg, Germany.

culturebase.net
Biography details and small article about the artist

Bond, A. The place of the veil, Material Immaterial Catalogue, Guinness Art Project NSW Art Gallery, 1997.

de Lorenzo,C. Photography Alive, Shirin Neshat p22

Art Asia Pacific No. 13 1997

Fenner, F. The personal and the political, Art Monthly, No.105, 1997.

Goodman,J. Poetic Justice, Shirin Neshat World Art, No.16, 1997.

Jaivin, L. From the Barrel of a Gun, Art Asia Pacific, p42, June 1993, Supplement to Art and Australia.

McDonald, J. Islands of lost soul Sydney Morning Herald, Sept 28 1996.

McDonald, J. Close Encounters Sydney Morning Herald, Oct 5 1996.