Shirin Neshat: Born of Fire

Shirin Neshat: Born of Fire marks the artist’s first museum exhibition in the New York area in over 20 years. The show offers a non-linear survey of Neshat’s artistic development, presenting focused installations of four significant bodies of work. These range from her first major photographic works, Women of Allah (1993–7)—images inspired by women’s involvement in the Islamic Revolution and Iran-Iraq War—to The Book of Kings (2012), a portrait series that calls on the tradition of Persian epic poetry to address the Arab Spring protest movement. The exhibition will also include more recent projects that present Neshat’s surreal film and video works alongside still photographs, including Land of Dreams (2019), in which the artist turns her attention to exploring American culture from the perspective of an Iranian artist in exile, and The Fury (2022–3), addressing sexual exploitation of female political prisoners.

Though distinct, all four bodies of work are connected by motifs of rebellion, storytelling, and human connection; presented together, they reveal how these key themes have developed throughout Neshat’s artistic evolution. The exhibition also features a gallery dedicated to her private collection of work by fellow artists, from friends such as Marina Abramović and Robert Longo to artists based in the Middle East. This installation reveals Neshat’s influences as well as her championship of lesser-known peers, especially from cultures where censorship impedes free expression.

Learn more about the exhibition here.

Shirin Neshat: Land of Dreams

With Land of Dreams, the intention was that while we are following the life of this woman who’s haunted by these two worlds – Iran and US, dream and reality – we are also really understanding the malice of a society that is spying on people’s subconscious for whatever selfish reasons. There is definitely a question of collecting data on people, but also there’s a lot of references to racism, bigotry, political injustice, poverty.

— Shirin Neshat

In Land of Dreams, Iranian multimedia artist Shirin Neshat turns her focus to the American West. With more than 100 photographs, a two-channel video installation, and a feature film, Neshat creates a multilayered, nuanced look at contemporary America through the eyes of a fictionalized artist.

Monumental black-and-white photographs are transformed through Neshat's use of Farsi text and images that have been hand drawn onto the picture. The texts represent her interpretation of the dreams of the sitter, with references to ancient myths and ideologies. Throughout her practice, Neshat experiments with the mediums of photography, video and film, which she imbues with highly poetic and politically charged images and narratives that question issues of power, religion, race, gender, and the relationship between past and present, occident and orient, the individual and the collective through the lens of her personal experiences as an Iranian woman living in exile.

Land of Dreams accompanies Neshat's solo show at SITE Santa Fe (October 7, 2022-January 13, 2023).

Learn more and order your copy here.