Shirin Neshat
Shirin Neshat
Following my research, I began looking for artists who lets cultural and political events, and consequently a sense of propaganda and satire, seep into her work. Shirin Neshat was born in Iran in a very small religious village but currently lives in New York. It was her father who initially pushed her sisters and her to attain an education to the West, as her father had dreams beyond Iran and had a fascination with western culture. He would go on to be Neshat’s idol.
Neshat never intended to stay in the West, but she did to continue her education in art, resulting in her not being in Iran when the revolution happened. This meant she didn’t see her family for 12 years and felt a big divide between herself and her country. This actually became a foundation for Neshat’s original feelings and thoughts in her work and a way to deal with her obsession with ideas of home or absence of home.
This idea of home is very important to Neshat. She has spent more time in New York than Iran and considers New York her home. However, she spends little time there. She works a lot in Morocco, Turkey, Egypt and doesn’t really go to Iran – so she had to mimic it in her artwork. All this frequent moving means Neshat has no sense of absolute home. The few times Neshat has travelled there she was shocked at the change that had come to Iran – men would not meet her eye and woman were just shapes; blobs of black clothing on a street. Women no longer had a voice. This is why a lot of calligraphy appears on the women she photographs – she is giving silent, constrained women a voice.
Despite this, Neshat loves the phrase “You can’t take an Iranian out of Iran, but not Iran out of an Iranian”. Despite all this change, she still feels Iran is a huge part of her.
But why did Neshat become an artist? She says it’s a mystery. At first it was a romantic idea, but it has evolved into a way to visually represent what all Iranians feel:
“Art for me is a place where my most inner and outer worlds connect. It’s the only place where I can be most truthful and most profound and really facing questions on doubts, fears, anxieties, hopes and dreams.”
As she changes, the way she expresses herself in art does. Recently, she has moved on from separation from Iran. Nowadays, she will start to look at American culture. Despite the change, her personality is always directly reflected in work. It’s always a voice of a woman and she is conscious of her own strength and fragility. She tries to constantly contradict the two in her work.
nd edit me. It's easy.
Speechless 1996
In an interview with the guardian Shirin Neshat stated she considers this to be her best photograph. It is normally printed larger than life so the gun is pointing at the viewers stomach. The woman in the picture is her friend Arita Shahrzad who Neshat believes to have “the perfect lips and eyes” when it comes to capturing sadness. Neshat is not trained in photography but has done it for her whole life.
This piece is part of her women of Allah series, which arouses from the act of martyrdom (killing yourself before renouncing your religion). During the 1979 evolution this was encouraged, and Neshat wanted to explore the psychological effects of martyrdom:
“These Iranians were caught between self-sacrifice, devotion, love of god – and cruelty, violence and death. We often think of women with an Islamic background as being passive and submissive to men, but here they were really empowered by bearing arms.”
The reason Neshat likes this photo so much is because of the position of the gun. It is worn like jewellery, and yet targeting the viewer. It is obvious are large part of her work is the history of the women of Islam and the dreadful decisions they had to make and the decisions they had to endure.
However, Neshat does not only draw from journalistic elements but on more conceptual ideas about Islamic art:
“I’m very interested in the use of calligraphy and decorative motifs in Islamic art. So I’d take a motif from, say, a Persian carpet and use that in a photograph. In every shot, you will find just the sort of repetition, abstraction, symmetry and composition that’s innate to classical Islamic art.”
The lines across the face of Arita are verses by the poet Tahereh Saffarzadeh in which she asks her brothers if she can join in the revolution.
“The meaning of those words, combined with the beauty of Arita’s face, is disrupted by the violence of the weapon.”
Rapture Series 1999
Neshat’s Rapture Series is a short film by Neshat. Throughout the film there is a huge contrast between black and white – the women are wearing long black chadors whilst the men wear white cotton shirts. The men’s faces are slightly darker and women’s face are highlighted, all contrasting with their clothing. In Neshat’s life, everything is black and white. Her dog is black, her walls and floor are white. This is an example of her life coming through in her work – or her work coming into her life.
In Rapture, women busy themselves putting a boat to sea whilst some depart onto open waters and men observe the scene from an elevated rampart, trapped between fortified walls. One interpretation of this is Neshat has reversed gender roles, having portrayed the men to be trapped and the women to be free. But Neshat says it is more about women’s relationship with nature.
“Rapture is about gender in relation to nature and culture. And for me it is truly curious that religious women in Iran are never pictured as having any connection to nature – mostly represented as they are in urban environments; and I found it interesting to represent a hundred of them in Nature while representing men in a traditionally masculine space”
Neshat's work was a great example of the messages and symbols art can have and art can carry. She squeezes so much symbolism and meaning into the tiniest details. Her messages are very satiric, yet subtle, a large step away from what (with my limited knowledge) was used to.
So, I went on to have a go at some primary source photos, to see what it took to own a message of my own.
The photos below are primary source photos inspired by Neshat’s work reflecting the restrictions placed on women in her society. Here, I am influenced by the current global issue of the coronavirus, which is spreading round the world at a rate of knots, causing fear, anxiety, and in some cases death. This virus has forced changes upon our day to day lives, with there being an increase in awareness of keeping clean and avoiding as much germs as possible. My sister Cate (who is photographed here) was reprimanded at her school for coughing into her elbow and not some sort of tissue, reflecting just how serious some people are taking this virus.
Neshat said that she hopes viewers take away something on an emotional level when looking at her instead of some grand political statement, and I tried to replicate that by using my sister (a young child) as the model and asking her to look worried (to the left). I made her hair more messy in some photos than in others to create an impression of stress and worry, and in many she is purposefully doing things that she has been advice not to; touching her eyes, touching her face, coughing into her hands instead of a tissue. This all reflects the confusion and disarray of different people telling the population different things.
The mask that Cate is wearing in these photos reflects the hysteria around the coronavirus; masks are a way to combat the virus, one of the few physical actions people can take that will make them feel more secure. Ideally, I would have used an actual medical mask for these photos, but they are actually hard to come by considering they are needed for genuine patients at the moment. (looking back from the end of my unit and about a year later, it's interesting to see how much this has changed. So instead I used kitchen role, which works just as well. Supermarkets are experiencing a shortage of toilet role at the moment, due to stockpiling which is taking place in and amongst different families at the moment. Neshat’s work often has words written on skin, which I failed to replicate – when I tried to write on top of my sister’s hand the letters were too big and didn’t replicate the effect Neshat created. This was where the kitchen role worked well, as it provided me with a platform to practice some calligraphy. Neshat said the writing on her photos provided the women in her photos with a voice, making it fitting the writing is over my sister's mouth. The writing on the mask is a Persian translation of a BBC news article talking about the virus, and the dark, black and white style is inspired by Neshat’s photos.
I took these photos in a completely blacked out room at night, creating a pitch black atmosphere. The light is used was a phone on the lowest setting to make the light as direct and contained as possible. I then switched my phone to a black and white setting.
Click to view each photograph individually
Looking back at these photographs I feel they worked well aesthetically, and when I first saw Neshat's this is what originally attracted me to her work. Her style, composition and contrast between black and white worked well on the page, and the elements of satire she involved on the page was what originally made me research her. But once I looked further into her artwork, her inspiration and her past I realised her photos and films were so much more than good pictures. Everything on the page has a purpose and everything she does has meaning. in every piece she incorporates herself, her culture, and her home into her work - all whilst having an almost 'agenda.'
I think having an agenda is really what sets Neshat's work apart from the crowd. But my pictures don't have one. They attempt to reflect the fear and confusion aroused from the coronavirus but in most of them that isn't really obvious. Everything Neshat used in her photos had a purpose even down to the lighting, and the lighting in my photographs is simply there to imitate her style.
This conclusion means that to further develop my research into Neshat's work I must find reason behind the lighting, find an agender to put in my work whilst still keeping an element of Neshat throughout. My work almost needs to tell a story like hers does, instead of just pretty pictures. The whole point of my unit was to find out how art carries a message in the media - that won't happen by simply copying a style.
So, I moved forward. Below are more photographs inspired by Neshat, but this time each has more purpose and actually fit into an overarching theme – similar to one of her many collections. In each of the photos, the only light is coming from phones, or an electronic device. This was done to reflect how everything we do in lockdown is done through devices – the examples I have in the photos are of exercising, teaching and talking. Suddenly, these devices play an even more important role in the lives of families around the world and their increased use put an increased strain on our eyes. By being the only light in these photos, it represents the only link we have to the outside world. In a sense, the light tells a story. These set of photos include my sister lying in her bed talking to her friends and listening to music. Interestingly, this a scene which could be found outside of lockdown but is seen more commonly now we are stuck at home. Her only contact with her friends in linked to the only light in the photographs.
More photos are done with my sister exercising on the kitchen floor. Each morning, she takes part in JoeWick on the kitchen floor. Beforehand, her main form of exercise was gymnastics, which she has not been able to do for weeks. The light is from the device she watches Joe Wick on.
My mum is a music teacher and in lockdown she has had to adapt by moving to online teaching. She calls her pupils daily and they try to maintain a usual rate of practicing and teaching. Clearly this has been difficult. Problems with connections, the size of the screen, an increased strain on eyesight and pupils not turning up has made life increasingly difficult. The variety of pupils and schools that my mum used to travel around is now centred around the size of the screen in front of her. The next few photos are of her teaching.
To stay in contact with her grandparents, we have to throw social contact out the window, and instead use laptops. That's why all the light in those photos come from a laptop.
Chiaroscuro
The definition of chiaroscuro is “the treatment of light and shade in drawing and painting.” In my second set of Neshat inspired photos, the principal point of focus is of the lights, all coming from different devices. This is an example of chiaroscuro, using the light to tell a story. Whether it be from a zoom call, an exercise video, or a text conversation, the light in each photo is controlled and used differently. Sometimes the lights only covers a small area and sometimes it shines onto the whole body.
This is similar to Joseph Wright of Derby, who was an English painter. He is noted in history as “the first professional painter to express the spirit of the Industrial revolution” and for his “use of the chiaroscuro effect which emphasised the contrast between light and dark”. His paintings had people illuminated buy specific and controlled candlelight, creating harsh differences between pale and darkness.
Chiaroscuro is normally noted upon when it is obvious in a piece of work – as light is present in all photos. Similar to Wright of Derby’s work, my photos use light as a tool to tell a story and therefore is a prominent example of chiaroscuro.
After completing these satirical grey-scale photographs I wanted to inject colour into them, to imaprt a part of the glossy, colourful satirical. Not only this, but perhaps the red is my sister trying to speak out, and she is blocked in parts by the mask over her face. Experimenting with colour and thread in and around these Neshat inspired photographs I realised I had created obvious links to Maurizio Anzeri, an artist famous for working with thread over pictures.
ANZERI
Maurizio Anzeri was born in Italy in 1969 and creates his portraits by sewing thread into vintage photographs he collects. The extra colour can give figures elaborate clothing, or a deep psychological evaluation of the mind. To me, what I notice immediately about his work is the deep stark contrast between the often silky, colourful thread and the vintage photo underneath.
'I worked with sewing, embroidery and drawing to explore the essence of signs in their physical manifestation. I take inspiration from my own personal experience and observation of how, in other cultures, bodies themselves are treated as living graphic symbols.'
But where does he find these photographs? He has collected portraits throughout his life because he has always had a passion for them. Wherever he travels he visits markets and purchases photographs. He feels that photography is all about the moment instead of the process. Taking a photo is capturing a moment in paper – which is what makes them so fascinating to Anzeri. His work is not about preserving the moment or being nostalgic. He says he works on these photographs to provide the people inside a passage out into the modern world. He also says he often seems to develop a relationship with the people in the photographs.
After I discovered Anzeri I experimented once more with thread. The result was similar to the faces in the group ensemble photograph.
