Often found at theaters and museums, Kwon Mee-yoo has covered a wide range of cultural fields from K-pop and dramas to theater and fine art for over a decade. Now as K-Culture Desk editor, she tries to connect Korean culture with global readers through fresh perspectives.
Poignant resistance
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“Rapture” by Iranian artist Shirin Neshat will be displayed at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) Seoul through July 13. / Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Iranian artist captures stunning images of female suppression
Shirin Neshat
By Kwon Mee-yoo
A Muslim woman, much of her head wrapped in a hijab, calmly gazes into the camera, her face overlaid with Iranian poems written in elegant calligraphy. This is a surreal and disturbing image even before we account for the gun pointed at her face.
The photo is one of the many works of Iranian artist Shirin Neshat now on display at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) Seoul. Her pieces represent the first part of the museum’s “MMCA — Asia Project” aimed at highlighting the works of contemporary Asian artists.
Neshat’s strength is her ability to bring a personal perspective to the universal theme that is female suppression. Her works are highly representative of the realities in Iran, where women continue to feel sidelined from society and culture. Her works are biting in commentary and stunning aesthetics wise.
Neshat says her works embody the contemporary Iranian identity, including its “dark” politics. She grew up in Qazvin, a religious town in north-western Iran and left her home country at the age of 17 to study in the United States. She was separated from her family over 12 years because of the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
Shirin Neshat’s 1994 work, “Women of Allah — Allegance with Wakefulness”
“It was the most painful time in my life and it is inseparable from political issues,” Neshat said in a conversation with Korean reporters over Skype.
Her earliest works are series of photographs titled “Women of Allah,” the Persian poem overlaid on photos of parts of the body.
“These photographs portray strong yet vulnerable, sensual yet vigilant women,” said Rebecca Hart, a curator from the Detroit Institute of Arts who co-organized this exhibit.
“Neshat’s inner world is mirrored in her works. She likes to pose questions that leave us to answer individually.”
As she advanced her career as a photo artist, Neshat picked up an interest in video art. Her video pieces such as “Turbulent” and “Ferver” focus on highlighting the sharply contrasting social status between men and women in Iran.
In "Turbulent," a man and a woman sing in two different screens facing each other. The man is singing in front of a large audience, while the woman is performing something unintelligible in an empty house. This is rather a straightforward criticism against the Iranian law banning women from singing in public.
“Women Without Men,” a three-channel video installation, shows Neshat’s creativity in better light, conveying a poignant and nuanced tale of social struggle and femininity through the eyes of three women.
The work was later converted into a feature film of the same name, which won Neshat a Silver Lion award for best director at the 66th Venice Film Festival in 2009. The film will be screened at the MMCA Seoul’s theater during the exhibit.
“The Book of Kings” is a series of photographs by Neshat updating Iranian traditional literature. She took inspiration from “Shahnama,” or Book of Kings, an Iranian epic poem dating back to some 1,000 years and brought the concept of the villain, the patriots and the masses through her signature calligraphy on photos.
Neshat is now living and working in New York, but she still finds herself belonging to nowhere. An 18-minute video “Soliloquy” shows the artist in two videos — one shot in New York and the other filmed in an Islamic mosque — and she remains silent throughout the video, as if she does not belong to neither of them.
Neshat’s exhibit runs through June 13. Admission is 4,000 won. For more information, visit www.mmca.go.kr or call (02) 3701-9500.