This past March, the Department of Art was honored to host a talk from internationally recognized visual artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat as part of the College of Fine Arts and Communications’ (CFAC) Listen Up! series.
Shirin Neshat’s work is widely acclaimed in the worlds of both art and film. She has directed two feature-length films and is the only person to have won both the Silver Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival and the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale. She has also had solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna and more. The Iranian-born, New York City-based artist spoke to CFAC students about her career, as well as her latest film Land of Dreams (2021). The talk was moderated by Associate Professor Collin Bradford and resident visiting artist Tiana Birrell.
Neshat immigrated to the United States from her native Iran in 1975, later enrolling in the University of California at Berkeley. After graduating in 1983, she moved to New York City and would not return to Iran until a visit in 1993. This inspired her early post-graduate work, which featured politically charged imagery of Iranian women (including herself) in their traditional headwear—the chador—and explored femininity within the bounds of Islamic fundamentalism. Gradually, as she expanded into film and installation work, her work developed a unique and nuanced voice. While exploring gender politics within Islamic and Iranian life, Neshat avoids didacticism in favor of a careful, steady watching and a deep connection to cultural tradition. In films like Turbulent and Rapture, the poeticism of her imagery widens the window of interpretation and makes the work applicable to wider audiences. In speaking of it, Professor Bradford paraphrases the art critic Dave Hickey: “The work is so beautiful that you pay attention to it, and the ideas seep in while you’re captivated by its beauty.”
During the lecture, conducted via Zoom on March 18th, 2021, Neshat explained how her life and experiences have impacted the themes of her art. “I’ve come to understand that the way my thinking process works is always some form of opposites. Partially because I feel like I’m always conflicted between the different characteristics I have within myself,” she said. “I’m in the U.S., but not quite feeling at home here or in my home in Iran. Duality is central to the core of my work, and that continues to this day.”
History, poetry and politics have also all played a major role in influencing Neshat’s artistic endeavors. “My life is defined by political reality. The revolution separated me and my family for good. Currently, I’m in exile. I cannot and do not have the luxury to distance myself from the political reality,” said Neshat. “In our society, being involved in political issues is not a choice.”
Neshat shared with students the background and meaning of her most recent exhibit, Land of Dreams, which is her first exhibit to incorporate all the mediums she uses—photography, film and video. “I am a nomadic artist. I am not loyal to one specific form,” she says of her practice. “Regardless of what subject I’m embracing, whether it’s photography or film or video, my art is always about things I’m facing as a human being. I became an artist as a way of creating a visual vocabulary to face existential issues in life, anxiety and separation from my country.”
Land of Dreams shares photographed portraits of over 100 people living in New Mexico, a former site of US nuclear missile testing, and which, coincidentally, closely resembles the climate and landscape of Iran. Alongside these photographs is a narrative surrounding these people; a 20-minute film featuring an Iranian woman who interviews people about their dreams. “This exhibit is what America looks like with all its diversity in culture, background, religion, races, gender, ages and colors,” said Neshat. “I’d never dared to make a project about America before this. But I felt it was time for immigrant artists to take responsibility and share how they feel about America and what they cherish about this country as well as what they are critical of.”
During the discussion with Tiana Birrell and Collin Bradford, Neshat expressed her belief in art’s responsibility not to give the answers to moral challenges - but rather to ask the questions. “There is no way I can control what people take away from my work—a lot of people take away what they want from it according to who they are. But I can leave it where everyone can enter.”
The Department of Art was honored to hear from an artist of Neshat’s renown, and the visit was at least in part made possible thanks to the Zoom format. “I know there are faculty in the department who have wanted to have her come out and visit us for the past 20 years but have never been able to. This was a culmination of lots of people really liking her work for decades,” says Collin Bradford. “Shirin is really busy. She’s editing her third major feature film, and she might not have had the time to make a trip out here. Zoom and COVID-19 have a big part of the responsibility for our success in making this talk work.”
Although this talk was hosted by the college, the Department of Art brings artists from a wide range of backgrounds to campus weekly as a part of its Visiting Artist Lecture Series. In addition to attending lectures, students are encouraged to hold individual studio visits with accomplished artists. During these critiques, visiting artists meet with students in their on-campus studios to discuss and critique the projects students are currently working on. Besides the invaluable opportunity to glean insight from established artists from all over the world, these visits also allow BYU students to build ties with visiting artists. By continued correspondence, these visits can grow into mentorships and serve as a rich ongoing influence in students’ careers. Studio visits are not ideally conducted online, but in the instance of Shirin Neshat’s visit, the format allowed for a lucky handful of students to hold studio visits with her via Zoom.
Hannah Landeen had this to say of her studio visit with the artist: “We spent a lot of my critique talking about my BFA final show, which was a highly personal project. She was very supportive of my work, and I was flattered when she called her friend over to come look at my drawings. They asked a lot of questions about it and were very complimentary and respectful. She gave some advice that helped me feel comfortable moving on from a (very personal, vulnerable) project. Visiting with Shirin rocked my world and I have filed that memory away as one of the best things I've experienced in my life.” Visiting with Shirin Neshat was especially significant to Landeen, who learned about her work early in her experience in the department: “I was first exposed to Shirin Neshat's Turbulent when I was in Daniel Everett's ART 210: New Genres class. It was the first new genre artwork I had seen that made me consider the merits of contemporary art. Listening to her lecture solidified my understanding that her work is highly motivated by empathy and storytelling, which made me admire her even more.”
In selecting visiting artists, the Department of Art always considers those whose work and ideas can encourage students to engage thoughtfully with the world around them. The opportunity to hear from an artist like Shirin Neshat is a special experience for any student, and because of her background and her outlook, her message is one uniquely primed for an audience at BYU. Collin Bradford spoke to the relevance and timeliness of her work: “It resonates with a BYU audience because she comes from a religiously devout place, a place where devotion is the norm. Iran also has a really rich intellectual history and tradition.” These elements beautifully reflect the goals of the department, and hearing such an established artist speak to those ends for our student body was a remarkable experience.