Prospect.1 – Shirin Neshat: Women without Men

Nov 20, 2008 by Loki

Tonight at 6 p.m. I’ll be hitting another Prospect.1 event and doing some audiocasting, an exhibition reception for Shirin Neshat: Women without Men. The reception opens at 6pm and it’s a free show. (If you happen to be a member of the gallery come at 5 pm- there will be wine.)

Today also marks the debut of the @Newcomb_Gallery twitter which I have helped set up, and they should be tweeting live during the reception. Come on and friend them, the more local arts we pull into the 21st Century the better. We always feel that the rest of the nation does not appreciate what we are fighting to save here in the city, what better way to communicate that than by showing them? (You can also follow @HumidCity on Twitter or my own social media tweetings  (@SocialGumbo) if you so desire…)

So anyway, Shirin Neshat: Women without Men is a set of four video installations by a woman many consider to be one of the most important contemporary artists working today. Based on Shahrnush Parsipur’s novel of the same name, the exhibition presents single narratives from the author’s interwoven tale of outcast Iranian women. The stills I have seen are both beautiful and eerie, I’m quite looking forward to seeing them for myself. From what my wife (Transparency note: she works for the gallery) tells me the videos are pretty short, less than 15 minutes or so each.

So come drop by, say hello and introduce yourself. You could even let them know that you heard about it here.

-Loki, HumidCity Founder

Keep going for their full Press Release >>

INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED ARTIST SHIRIN NESHAT AT NEWCOMB ART GALLERY

Iranian-American photographer and video artist part of citywide biennial Prospect.1 New Orleans

New Orleans LA – October 5, 2008 – As part of the international contemporary art biennial Prospect.1 New Orleans, the Newcomb Art Gallery at Tulane University will exhibit Shirin Neshat: Women without Men from November 1, 2008 to February 7, 2009.

The exhibition consists of four video installations from an on-going film project inspired by Shahrnush Parsipur’s surrealist novel Women without Men (Zanan Bedun-e Mardan), banned by the Iranian government in 1989. In each installation, Mahdokht, Zarin, Munis, and Faezeh, the artist explores single narratives from the author’s interwoven tale of outcast Iranian women to comment on the lives of real women in traditional Muslim societies.

“Shirin Neshat is one of the most important contemporary artists working today,” noted gallery director Charles M. Lovell, “so we are excited that the Newcomb Art Gallery was chosen to exhibit her work as part of Prospect.1. And although she explores social issues specific to Iran, audiences will see that she also transcends cultural boundaries in order to present universally significant themes such as displacement, isolation, and loss.”

Shirin Neshat was born in Qazvin, Iran—a center of textile trade 100 miles northwest of Tehran—in 1957. Moving to California at the age of seventeen, she received her M.F.A. from UCBerkeley in 1983, and soon after moved to New York. In 1990, she visited her home country for the first time in more than ten years, and the experience was transformative. Radically altered by the Islamic Revolution and its fundamentalist regime, Iran’s cultural and political landscape deeply disturbed, yet also intrigued, the artist. In response to this experience, Neshat created the internationally lauded photographic series, Women of Allah (1993-97). By the late 1990s, she had embraced the medium of film (16-mm and, later, 35-mm) to create works such as Turbulent (1998), Soliloquy (1999), Rapture (1999), and Fervor (2000).

Neshat’s photographs and videos have been included in many international exhibitions, including the Biennale of Sydney, 1996; the Johannesburg Biennial, 1997; and the Venice Biennale, 1999. In addition, her works are in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the British Museum.

Shirin Neshat: Women without Men is supported in part by Prospect.1 New Orleans; U.S. Biennial
Inc.; the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the Georges Lurcy Charitable and Educational Trust; Tulane University Center for Scholars, Office of the Dean, School of Liberal Arts; the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College Institute; the Gladstone Gallery, New York; and Zeitgeist Multi-disciplinary Arts Center.

About Newcomb Art Gallery:
Located in the Woldenberg Art Center on the Tulane University uptown campus, the Newcomb Art Gallery is dedicated to the enrichment of the cultural and intellectual life of the Tulane University and New Orleans communities. The gallery aims to present exhibitions of national significance while seeking to preserve and promote the artistic traditions of Newcomb College. Programs of the Newcomb Art Gallery are supported by Tulane University, the Newcomb Institute, and private endowments. For more information about the gallery or exhibit, please visit www.newcombartgallery.tulane.edu or Teresa Parker Farris at 504.314.2406 or [email protected]. For gallery tours or educational programs, contact Shelley Boles at 504-865.5361 or [email protected].

About Prospect.1 New Orleans:
Prospect.1 New Orleans was conceived by Dan Cameron to reinvigorate the city, a historic regional artistic center, following the human, civic, and economic devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The primary goal of the biennial exhibition is to redevelop the city as a cultural destination where the visual arts are celebrated and can once again thrive. The largest international art biennial ever held in the United States, Prospect.1 will present 81 artists in more than 25 venues to reach an estimated audience of 100,000 visitors. For more information on Prospect.1 New Orleans, please visit www.prospectneworleans.org or contact U.S. Biennial, Inc. at (212) 680-5305 or [email protected]. All media questions should be directed to Kellie Honeycutt at Blue Medium, Inc.: [email protected].

For more information on Shirin Neshat:
http://www.gladstonegallery.com/neshat.asp
http://www.cmoa.org/international/html/art/neshat.htm
http://www.time.com/time/europe/photoessays/neshat/
http://www.absolutearts.com/artsnews/2005/09/30/33343.html
http://www.kopenhagen.dk/interviews/interview/interview_shirin_neshat/

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