Lugano
Shirin Neshat was born in Qazvin, Iran, in 1957. In 1974, she left her homeland to move to Los Angeles, where she continued her studies. She graduated in 1982 from the University of California, Berkeley. During these years, she began creating self-portraits in which she wore the veil, which had become mandatory for Iranian women starting in 1983.
Her return to Iran in 1990, after more than a decade away, was a shocking experience: she found a country profoundly transformed by the 1979 revolution, almost unrecognizable. This emotional impact sparked a deep artistic reflection on memory, loss, and change.
Between 1993 and 1997, she created the powerful series Women of Allah, in which photographs of veiled women are overlaid with handwritten texts, often drawn from religious sources, creating a dialogue between image and word. Neshat didn’t limit herself to photography; she also experimented with installations and video, exploring female identity within both private and public spheres of Iranian and Western cultures.
Her work, which has never been shown in Iran, boldly asserts the presence of women in a male dominated society. In her films and photographs, the female gaze becomes a powerful and at times subversive tool of expression and communication.
Despite being unable to exhibit in her own country, Neshat has gained wide international recognition. In 1999, she won the 48th Venice Biennale Award for her film Turbulent, which contrasts a man singing before an all-male audience with a woman performing in an empty concert hall, an evocative juxtaposition of visibility and silence. She currently lives and works in New York.
