Shirin Neshat
Shirin Neshat was born in Islamic
Qazvin, Iran, in 1957. Her father was a prominent physician and member of the
landed gentry. As was customary for her class and generation, Neshat was sent
to a Catholic boarding school in Tehran to receive a European education
(Dabashi 35). When she graduated high
school, Neshat was living in a time when Iran’s modernization was at its
height, Tehran was “indistinguishable from Paris,” and money was plentiful from
oil revenue (35). However, just after
Shirin Neshat left to attend college in the U.S., the Islamic revolution
overthrew the monarchy, preventing Neshat from seeing her family in Iran for 16
years. Living in California (studying art at the University of California in
Berkeley), Neshat had no choice but to follow the U.S. mass media reporting on
Iran’s bloody revolution (1977-1979), The Hostage Crisis in 1979-1980, the
Iran/Iraq war 1980-1988, the Iran-Contra affair (1983-1988), the constitutional
crisis leading to theocracy (1988-1989), and many other events that caused
public scrutiny of her beloved homeland (35).
When Neshat graduated from Berkeley, she moved to New York, married, and worked with her husband in an art gallery. However, Neshat had decided to abandon art…completely. She claimed she was not passionate about any of her ideas and had no interest in pursuing her art career. It wasn’t until 1990, when she was able to go home to Iran, that her desire returned. Neshat was “’shocked’ by the ‘frightening and exciting changes’ by the ‘enormous difference’ between what she had remembered from the Iranian culture and what she had witnessed sixteen years later” (Milani 7). The dramatic change of her home and her personal displacement are the basis for all of Shirin Neshat’s work.
Dabashi, Hamid, Municio Silvia Clemente. Xaya Octavio. comp. Shirin Neshat. León, España: MUSAC, 2005. Print.
Milani, Farzaneh. Shirin Neshat. Milano, Italy: CHARTA, 2001. Print.
When Neshat graduated from Berkeley, she moved to New York, married, and worked with her husband in an art gallery. However, Neshat had decided to abandon art…completely. She claimed she was not passionate about any of her ideas and had no interest in pursuing her art career. It wasn’t until 1990, when she was able to go home to Iran, that her desire returned. Neshat was “’shocked’ by the ‘frightening and exciting changes’ by the ‘enormous difference’ between what she had remembered from the Iranian culture and what she had witnessed sixteen years later” (Milani 7). The dramatic change of her home and her personal displacement are the basis for all of Shirin Neshat’s work.
Dabashi, Hamid, Municio Silvia Clemente. Xaya Octavio. comp. Shirin Neshat. León, España: MUSAC, 2005. Print.
Milani, Farzaneh. Shirin Neshat. Milano, Italy: CHARTA, 2001. Print.