SHIRIN NESHAT

The works of Iranian artist, photographer, and filmmaker Shirin Neshat (b. 1957) exude self-confidence and a powerful presence but also an air of vulnerability. Neshat's art is defined by a melding and broadening of the rich visual traditions of Persian and Western art, a reflection of her family roots and current life in the diaspora of the US. Her work now forms the focus of the museum's first presentation in association with the Written Art Collection. Central themes of her work are identity, origin, and power structures, including how they relate to women. Shirin Neshat draws on, among other things, the traditional calligraphy of her country of origin as well as the Western canon of portraiture.
Her most recent work, Land of Dreams (2019), previously unshown in Germany, also combines these two elements, using for the first time the media of photography and video - 111 photographic portraits and two films - in one work. The black-and-white images, typical of Neshat*s style, always reveal the collective history in all its social and geopolitical complexity expressed in the individuality of her sitters. These works by the most important Persian artist of the present day are imbued with a lyrical, rhythmic density that is achieved through the merger of writing, gestural expression, and variation in format, with each work telling a story of its own.