Born in 1957 in Qazvin, Iran and raised there until the age of 17, Shirin Neshat moved to the United States to study art at the University of California, Berkeley following the eruption of the Islamic Revolution. After graduation from Berkeley in 1983 she moved soon after to New York City and did not return to Iran until the 1990s.

Like many artists who have been displaced by the political climates of their native countries, Neshat sought to understand her country, which had been so transformed in her years of absence. In her early work, from the distance of this exile - she looked back, attempting to untangle the complex ideologies of Islam through her art. Infused with the oppositions of west and east and the internal tensions of women’s role in Islamic society as well as the overarching meeting of modernity and the ancient traditions of Iran, Neshat found photography to be the medium which contained the realism and impact which her subject matter demanded, conveying the urgency and immediacy which she herself felt.

The result of this first series of works was Women of Allah (1993-97), a photographic series of militant Muslim women that subverts the stereotype and examines the Islamic idea of martyrdom.

‘I chose to concentrate on the meanings behind "martyrdom," a concept which became the heart of the Islamic government’s mission at the time, particularly during the Iran/Iraq War. It promoted faith, self-sacrifice, rejection of the material world, and ultimately, life after death. Mostly, I was interested in how their ideas of spirituality, politics and violence were and still are so interconnected and inseparable from one another’

Neshat plays upon the dramatic contrasts which exist in Iran, both visually and in her subject matter. She is not afraid of the symbolic stereotypes which exist within Islam, and are found in her work, often dramatized against expanses of vast open landscape.

In 1996, Neshat began working with film in her attempts to create more fluid, continuous expressions in her work. She produced a trilogy of video installations: Turbulent (1998), Rapture (1999) and Fervor (2000) - which examined the male/female dynamic in Islamic societies.

Her film installations are an experience which absorbs the viewer into an encompassing dialogue - large wall projections - continuous sound - there is an intensity to the aesthetic and conceptual oppositions which impinges upon the spectator emotionally, physically even - made all the more so by the sensory experience of engaging with her work. The music is integral and cannot be separated conceptually from the images - and represents what Neshat herself is trying to express - the music by Sussan Deihim’s; (a contemporary Iranian singer living in New York), although based on traditional Islamic melodies, it is quite radical, too, in that it does not quite resemble any particular music and in this way compliments the content of Neshat’s images

After the revolution in Iran, the government imposed restrictive codes o filmmaking and filmmakers had to adjust the way they expressed their ideas. As a result of this, Neshat explains, ‘a new form of cinema was born that thrived in the midst of all the governmental censorship. These films have been successful for their humanistic, simple and universal approach. They reveal so much about Iranian culture without being overly critical.’

Neshat does not seek to build on the clichés which surround Islam, nor does she wish to perpetuate the East West dialogue - she does not compare the Islamic woman to that of the West and she does not see their feminist fight as the same -‘ In Iran women are quite powerful, unlike their clichéd image. What I try to convey through my work is that power, which is quite candid.

Symbols such as the veil are explored emotionally from an Iranian perspective acknowledging the outsiders conceptual constraints and moving on from this to show the internal cultural poetry of the intense sexuality and subtlety of desire and its power.

In her more recent work she has moved further in her questioning, exploring the wider issues of presence and absence, life and death, nature and culture.

Shirin Neshat lives and works in New York.


International exhibitions:
Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany;
Moving Pictures, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York 2002;
Arte Contemporaneo Internacional, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City 2001;
Lyon Biennial, Lyon, France 2000 ;
Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 2000;
Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA 1999;
Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy 1999 ;
Trade Routes: History and Geography: 2nd Johannesburg Biennale 1997.


Solo exhibitions of her work have been presented at:
Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy 2002;
Irish Museum of Art, Dublin, Ireland 2001;
Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York 2001;
Serpentine Gallery, London 2000;
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas 2000;
Wexner Center, Columbus, Ohio 2000;
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago 1999.
1996 Neshat was awarded a grant from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation.


Lucy Tyler
Osborne Samuel, July 2006