Shirin Neshat once said in an interview with Out of Sync – Art in Focus, that it remains a mystery, even to herself, why she became an artist. Through her photographic and video work, she said, she was able to be at her most truthful and profound. Art is where the poetry and mysticism of her native Iran, part of her cultural genetic code, is best explored.
The powerful, internationally renowned artist will be in Guelph Wednesday to give the 11th annual Dasha Shenkman Lecture in Contemporary Art, put on by the University of Guelph’s College of Arts, and School of Fine Art and Music. It takes place in War Memorial Hall on campus at 6 p.m.
The event is free and all are welcome. There is free parking in U of G lots P23/24 and P19 after 5 p.m.
Neshat gained international acclaim in the 1990s with her photographic series Women of Allah, depictions of women wearing the black hijab, their faces superimposed with Persian language poetry, and often holding guns.
She described the works, her first series as an artist, as “conceptual narratives on the subject of female warriors during the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979.” It was her most overtly political work.
Neshat, 59, left Iran before the revolution to study in the US. She remained in the states. She lives in New York City, but has described her life as a nomadic one, pursuing her film and photographic work in countries like Egypt, Turkey, and Moracco – countries that are similar in some ways to Iran.
At its heart, Neshat’s work is rooted in an obsession with the absence and loss of home, she has said. And while she does not return to Iran, she considers herself first and foremost an Iranian.
Her lecture will explore the development and trajectory of her work, from photography to video installations, progressing to cinema and opera.
Two of her more recent video installations, entitled Roja and Sara, will be a focus of her presentation. She will also talk about her next feature-length film titled Looking for Oum Kulthoum, which was filmed in Morocco last fall. She made her first feature-length film, Women Without Men in 2009.
The Dasha Shenkman Lecture in Contemporary Art began in 2007, bringing distinguished figures in the art world to Guelph. A gift by Canadian art collector and philanthropist Dasha Shenkman makes the annual lecture possible.
