I first interviewed Shirin Neshat two years ago, in the dimly lighted backroom of an upscale New York restaurant, on the release of the Iranian artist's directorial debut, “Women Without Men.†The movie about the 1953 coup d'état in Iran earned her the Silver Lion as best director at the 66th Venice Film Festival.
The complexities of Ms. Neshat's work has captivated me ever since she first attained international recognition in the mid ‘90s. I was intrigued by our parallel worlds â€" two Muslim Middle Eastern women, eyes lined with pencils of coal, residing in the United States. More than two decades separate us in age, a full generation in either of our respective homelands, Iran and Turkey, but the much longer continuum of culture and gender awareness unite us.
Last week I called her up, having just seen her exhibition, “The Book of Kings,†at the Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont in Paris. The phone rang â€" once, twice â€" while I rehearsed a message to leave, and then a voice surfaced. Shirin remembered me, said she was leaving soon for Egypt. Could I come to her SoHo studio? We were on.
This new body of work â€" black-and-white photo portraits and a video installation â€" taps the Arab Spring for themes of violence, submission, power, authority, love, Islam as religion and Islam as politics. The work marks a turning point in the artist's career, where she lifts her eyes from her native Iran to explore the larger questions of life in the Middle East.
Read the interview and view intimate photographs of Shirin Neshat's studio taken by me after our conversation in the pages of the IHT.
