Shirin Neshat Takes the Hamptons

Nida (Patriots), from The Book of Kings, 2012. Artwork © Shirin Neshat, Courtesy the artist, Gladstone Gallery, & Noirmontartproduction Visitors to the Parrish Art Museum’s summer exhibition, Shirin Neshat: Born of Fire, unfamiliar with the Iranian American conceptual artist’s oeuvre exploring themes of female empowerment, political resistance, and cultural displacement, would be forgiven for thinking she has a background in fashion photography. Which isn’t to say that there are designer labels pictured in this nonlinear survey focusing on four significant bodies of work the Brooklyn-based artist created over the past two decades. There’s a quiet chicness to the minimalist looks worn by women in Neshat’s arresting Persian calligraphy-overlaid black-and-white photos, to say nothing of the dramatic potential implicit in a swipe of kohl. “I think Shirin’s work resonates with visitors because it is absolutely beautiful and she gives us a way into difficult themes through aesthetics,” says the exhibition’s curator, Corinne Erni. The two met in the early ‘90s before either woman had embarked on her current career in the art world—Erni was a fashion designer and Neshat co-director of the alternative art space Storefront for Art and Architecture—and have been friends ever since. “She captures the soul of humanity in depicting the struggle for freedom of both Iranians and Americans,” Erni elaborates. Installation View of Patriots and Villains from The Book of Kings, 2012. Artwork © Shirin Neshat, Courtesy the artist, Gladstone Gallery, & Noirmontartproduction, Paris. Photo © Gary Mamay Born in Qazvin, Iran, in 1957, Neshat was a student at Berkeley when the Islamic Revolution broke out in 1979 and has spent most of her life in exile. In the exhibition’s earliest body of work, Women of Allah (1993-97), Neshat grapples with with the ways Iranian women’s lives have been drastically curtailed by the morality police through performative self-portraits in which she appears swathed in a chador that leaves only her face—and the butt of a riffle—exposed. Later photos and video pieces often highlight black secular clothing. The Book of Kings (2012), an installation of 40 large-format photos relating the Green Movement protests of 2009 to the 11th-century Persian epic poem Shahnameh about the rise and fall of dynasties and the struggle between good and evil, juxtaposes black V-neck tee hands-over-heart Patriots with crewneck-clad passive observer Masses and shirtless tattooed Villains. Still from The Fury, 2022 Artwork © Shirin Neshat, Courtesy the artist and Gladstone Gallery “My work started with the black veil, but once I turned my back towards the hijab, black became more of an aesthetic choice,” Neshat reflects. “One of the reasons for the minimalist style is that I really like wearing this type of clothing myself. I also like that you can’t tell the period of black pieces. While often inspired by current events, my work is meant to be evocative and timeless.” Sometimes, though, Neshat’s fashion choices skew a bit more maximalist: The Fury (2022-2023), a multimedia series about the long-term effects of trauma, includes a two-channel video piece in which a former Iranian political prisoner and sexual abuse survivor experiences a mental break on the street in Bushwick in an off-the-shoulder sequin gown and wildly drawn on cat eye liner. “Style enhances the character,” says Neshat. “Just like scenery, costumes and makeup become a part of the narrative.” Installation view of Land of Dreams, 2019. Artwork © Shirin Neshat, Courtesy the artist, Gladstone Gallery, and Goodman Gallery. Photo © Gary Mamay. Land of Dreams (2019-2021), is a departure both in form and in subject matter. It includes Neshat’s first documentary series she terms a “portrait of America,” comprising 111 individual portraits of people of every race and creed she photographed in New Mexico and inscribed with excerpts from an ancient Persian text on dream interpretation. It marks the first time after spending most of her life in the United States that she chose to highlight her adopted homeland. Over the course of two weeks, Neshat canvassed the Land of Enchantment from urban neighborhoods in Albuquerque to the old Spanish colonial town Las Vegas and the high desert outpost Farmington on the edge of Navajo Nation, setting up a gray seamless in hotels, parks, and even a pizza parlor. Simin and Consuelo Contana from Land of Dreams, 2019. Artwork © Shirin Neshat, Courtesy the artist, Gladstone Gallery, and Goodman Gallery “I went around asking my subjects if they could remember their latest dream,” Neshat recalls. “We told them they should come as they would like to be photographed, and some of them dressed quite elegantly. We put on makeup, and then slowly they felt very comfortable.” The portrait series includes an Easter egg: Simin, Neshat’s alter-ego in a later two-channel video piece and a feature film that will be screened at the Parrish on August 10, also both called Land of Dreams. Played by the Iranian American actress Sheila Vand, this mysteriously chic woman in an LBD and combat boots is a “dreamcatcher” who records Americans’ dreams to indeterminate ends. “My earlier work was very much about Iran, and even though I am now turning my perspective to American culture, the issues are very similar,” Neshat says. 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