The work of Shirin Neshat revolves around the condition of the Muslim woman, striking a balance between the search for cultural identity and the distortions and prejudices faced in the West. Through her photography and videos she has explored the segregation of men and women in Muslim society, projecting the construction and politicization of the public space and the confinement of desire to the private sphere.
The pieces featured provide a comprehensive look of the issues upon which the artist touches in her work devoted to the body. The exhibition includes, on the one hand, a group of photographs produced in connection to her video Rapture, in which the woman always appears covered by the chador, rendering invisible her subjectivity and her body, hidden but constantly expectant. At the same time, the artist uses the short film Zarin to introduce the viewer into the “disorderly” body of the woman, which is offered as an aggressively graphic text. Neshat also approaches the body as the place where history is inscribed in the series of photographs she has produced using the Persian Book of Kings as a starting point. The exhibition is completed by OverRuled, a short film developed from a performance where she reviews the struggle of words against the coercive power of authoritarianism.
Shirin Neshat (Iran, 1957) has lived and worked in the United States since 1974. Her work has been exhibited in the most important museums and art centers of the world, as well as in Documenta XI (2002) and the Whitney Museum Biennial (2000). In 1999, she was awarded the Golden Lion in the XLVIII Venice Biennale, and in 2009 she received the Silver Lion for her movie Women Without Men.
Written on the Body
PHotoEspaña 2013
June 6 – September 1st, 2013
Espacio Fundación Telefónica
Madrid
Spain
