Episode 062 Shirin Neshat

Show Notes

Today we are visiting with the one and only Shirin Neshat, who hardly needs introduction. If you’ve ever taken an art history class that covers video art, photography, international cinema, or for that matter contemporary opera, you’ve definitely seen Shirin’s work. Since her debut exhibition in 1993 at Franklin Furnace, Shirn’s work has offered a deeply personal yet universal perspective on womanhood, power, corruption, trauma, and the female body as the battleground of social and political manipulation. All of this in Shirin’s work is of course informed very much by her experience as an Iranian immigrant, who moved to the US at age seventeen just prior to the revolution, and since then has lived ostensibly in exile. These themes in her work however are quite universal, which is something Shirin spoke to expensively in our chat when we discussed her latest work which just so happens to be on view as we speak. Her latest exhibition at Gladstone Gallery titled The Fury is on view until March 4th, you’ve got a whole month to check it out, and this show features new works including a photo series and a large video installation in Shirin’s signature black and white with two channels of video on opposite walls, that harkens all the way back to her iconic 1998 video installation Turbulent. We discuss all this and more in our chat, as well as Shirin’s perspective on the ongoing protests and movement in Iran sparked by the death of Masha Amini — which of course is deeply related to the themes that have been present in Shirin’s work for decades.

Today’s episode, and the many more artist interviews coming your way this year was made possible thanks to generous support from wonderful folks at the Kramlich Art Foundation.

Links from the conversation with Shirin

> The Fury: https://www.gladstonegallery.com/exhibition/10596/the-fury/installation-views
 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] B.: From Small Data Industries, this is Art and Obsolescence. I'm your host, Ben Fino-Radin and on this show, I chat with people that are shaping the past present and future of art and technology. And today we are visiting with a truly legendary artist and filmmaker. 

[00:00:20] Shirin: Hi, I'm Shirin Neshat, I'm Iranian born, visual artist and filmmaker living in New York.

[00:00:27] B.: Shirin hardly needs introduction, and to be completely candid with you, dear listener, she's one of those artists that I am sort of in disbelief that I get the treat of spending a bit of time with on this show. If you've ever taken an art history class that covers video art, photography, international cinema, or for that matter contemporary opera, you have definitely seen Shirin's work, which if you haven't already gathered is quite interdisciplinary. It seems there is hardly a medium she hasn't worked in. Since her debut exhibition in 1993 at Franklin Furnace Shirin's work has offered a deeply personal yet universal perspective on womanhood, power, corruption, trauma, and the female body as the battleground of social and political warfare. All of this in Shirin's work is of course informed very much by her experience as an Iranian immigrant who moved to the US at age 17, just prior to the revolution. And since then has lived ostensibly and exile. These themes in her work, however, are quite universal, which is something Shirin spoke to extensively in our chat when we discussed her latest work, which just so happens to be on view as we speak her latest exhibition at Gladstone Gallery titled The Fury is on view until March 4th. You've got a whole month to check it out and this show features new works, including a photo series and a large video installation in Shirin's signature, black and white with two channels of video on opposite walls that hearkens all the way back to her iconic, 1998 video installation Turbulent. We discuss all of this and more in our chat, as well as Shirin's perspective, of course, on the ongoing protest and movement in Iran sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini which is deeply intertwined with the themes that have been present in Shirin's work for decades. Today's episode and the many more artists interviews coming your way this year, was made possible. Thanks to the generous support from the wonderful folks at the Kramlich Art Foundation. Now without further delay, let's dive into this week's chat with Shirin Neshat. 

[00:02:40] Shirin: I grew up in a small town in a very religious conservative city called Qazvin about two hours northwest of Tehran. And I was never exposed to arts. There was no one in my family or remote relatives that were artistically inclined. So, I often find that a mystery why I was so attracted to becoming an artist. All I know that when I was in elementary school and in high school they used to call me the artist because I would do this silly drawings on the walls and I would just doodle and things, but nothing serious. But to be very honest I was always known as an artist type, but I never understood where this urge came from. All the way up until I was 18 or 19. I've never stepped into museum, a gallery, I'd never known anything about art history. And Iran itself was particularly the city I came from culture was nonexistent. I mean, majority was decorative art or illustrative art. But there was no relationship to modern arts or visual art as we know it here in the west. When I was young as woman in Iran even our families never had the highest expectation for us to be anyone other than a wife, and a mother. But my father was very unique in the way that he really wanted his children to study. And it was very clear that I wanted to study art. And when I came to us of course the first few years I was totally lost in translation, adapting to this culture, learning the language. And soon after I arrived, came the Iranian revolution and my one sister who was with me returned to Iran. So I was alone at the age of 17, 18. And then I entered UC Berkeley soon after at the art department. So, as you can imagine being quite young, being quite immature and being a little lost culturally I wasn't really capable of really diving into. Being an artist or finding my own voice or even relating to the art history that I was being taught or the education. So I was quite isolated, I would say. And all I remember that the pressure for me was, oh, okay, I'm Iranian now living in the US so I need to create work. That it sort of becomes a hybrid between my culture and the American culture or the Western art. I started to do this very silly paintings that I've destroyed every evidence of it, luckily. And so I could easily say that those few years that I spent at UC Berkeley, I created extremely mediocre work. And meanwhile, I was completely captivated by what was going on politically in my country. And slowly the doors closed to Iran as the revolution took place and the American hostages were taken. And there was no diplomatic relation between Iran and US. And also that, there was a war with Iraq, and so I was quite dismantled emotionally. And so for me, my education took definitely a backseat. So my years of UC Berkeley was blurred and me feeling completely insecure and lost and full of anxiety about my survival alone as a young person away from the family and from my country. So my education was kind of a waste of time.

I studied at a art department where it was a very male dominated professors like Peter Voulkos, Harold Paris, some of whom you may not know, they've all passed. But they were heavy duty metal sculptors there were a few, like I remember we had many visitors, like Jay DeFeo or I really were gravitating towards more feminists artist s. Judy Chicago came once. One of my professor Sylvia Lark who unfortunately died very early in her age. Really introduced me to some of the female American painters and feminist artists, which I found very fascinating. Across the street from our department was the UC Berkeley Art Museum where David Ross was the director and he brought people like Julian Schnabel, which was for us, mind blowing at the time with his broken potteries on the canvases. So, you know, and Richard Serra came to give lectures. And so I was exposed to some very major American international artists. It's just that I started to really get a sense of who are the bigger players in contemporary modern art. But I was never really influenced by it. I was just more like absorbing it and understanding the feminist movement, what was happening in New York scene art scene, the more expressionist artists that were growing out of that area. And this was by then in the late eighties, 1980s which is just before I moved to New York. So, I was exposed, but as an artist I would say that I was not able to, transition into any kind of work that could have been taken seriously. and I think a lot of my professors and the teachers really became more of a community for me that gave me a sense of security more as a human being, not as an artist. And many of them didn't really see me as a very talented artist, and I'm sure of that. And they were quite surprised later when I actually did become a professional artist. And many of my colleagues at the time did blossom and become quite known in San Francisco area at least. But really my, growth artistically, and I would say intellectually mentally happened once I moved to New York,

 Very often now that I look back and when I have an opportunity to talk to young students, this expectation that you as an 18, 19, even 20 year old, enter a school and suddenly you are faced with your talents or incredible gift that is so intuitive that you have to dig in and try to discover and discover your signature and, then go out into the world after and become somebody. It's just in principle, I disagree with that direction. I think art is not something that grows in your intuition. It's is something that grows in , you by exposing yourself to life, to experiences, to pain, to, traveling, to reading, to knowledge. And, I, I essentially find it wrong for people in that such young age and to study art. I think they need to first do other things and then study art. And for that reason, I feel that I was a very good example of it because I had absolutely no mental preparation to digest process and then invent myself at such a young age because I was just doing the right thing, which was learning to live, learning to adapt, learning to absorb what was going on around me politically, culturally. And I was just not in any ways prepared to create anything. I was just more taking things in. And it was not even until my thirties that I started to really find that I did have something to say or I had processed certain things.

[00:10:09] B.: You mentioned moving to New York and I gather that, those first years in the city were a bit of an adjustment period for you as I think of course it can be for many young artists who first move to New York. What was going on in those early years for you? What was that process like?

[00:10:25] Shirin: I have lived many different chapters and for me, this turning away from California, all that it represented, which is something I never really, really liked very much. The good weather, the good life, the comfort zone a certain culture that because, you know, I came from Iran a place that we always lived on the edge, somehow for me, California didn't challenge me in any ways. As soon as I arrived to New York, of course, again, I was lost. I was young still. I needed to now learn ways to earn money. So it was the survival took priority. Again, I had no real talent, or I didn't have a career. I had to learn to find jobs. I worked in hair salons, I worked in textile companies. But slowly I started to mingle with the underground, I would say art community. It was in the eighties. There was the graffiti art scene, there was break dancing, there was rap music, there was club scene. I started to live in the East Village and started to even dress differently. Started to go to openings, started to run into Keith Harring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and became friends with Futura 2000 and started to see Madonna. You know, it was just a very exciting bohemian moment in New York, which I never experienced again, by the way. And I slowly started to really like living on the edge in absolute poverty, but really happy I felt alive, I felt exposed to very exciting underground culture. I was starting to also take dance classes. I started to take philosophy classes at NYU and really arts or becoming an artist was not my plans. And I think from 1983 on it was some of the most exciting and happy times in my life because by this moment, I became more of a mature person and I had learned to stand on my two feet. It was long enough that I've been separated from my family and I became very independent. I met my future husband who was Kyong Park, who had founded this extraordinary grassroot not-for-profit organization called the Storefront for Art and Architecture. He himself was a visionary and intellectual, and also I would say an artist and architect. So, we converged our interest and he became my idol in many ways. And the next 10 years I worked at the Storefront for Art and Architecture and I had a child. And those 10 years also became extraordinary education for me and, opening to American underground culture, arts and artists. I met many, many artists like Kiki Smith, Vitto Acconci, Mel Chin, Alfredo Jaar. I met many artists who were on the intersection of architecture. those years really helped me develop my own identity, my own existence as a individual, as an artist. And, that all led to me becoming an artist. One of the biggest influences from my experience working at the Storefront was my exposure to artists and architects and all kinds of people whose work was developed. And based on research knowledge it was enriched with so much information. It was not something that came from purely intuition, which was my greatest lesson that art comes from knowledge and from experience and from research. And that was totally opposite of my education the art school. And so, I learned that for example, my very first body of work, the woman of Allah that I spent like two years researching. About the Islamic Revolution, the, basis of the fanaticism that grew, the religious fervor that grew in Iran. And I started to interview people. I started to read books. I started to collect images. And, I learned that this was all from having worked at the storefront, understanding that, your work just becomes so much richer if it comes from your heart and your mind in a way of that intuitive urge, but also is informed by knowledge, you see? And so, I'm really grateful for that. I think by the 10th year that I was working at the Storefront, I started to feel a little restless because I was just serving other artists and the program at the storefront, which included exhibitions, catalogs, conferences, I licked stamps to cleaning, to curating, to meeting with the artists, everything. But came the time in 1990 that finally I went back to home the first time in 11, 12 years. It was a mind blowing experience returning home and facing my family, the country. And, and then I started to go back more frequently and something sparked in me that, Hey, maybe I am ready, I am ready to really start making art, to really developing my own identity a person, not only a shadow of Storefront, because up to now I was just, an extension of the Storefront, the identity of storefront. And so I started to read a lot of poetry literature, especially written by Iranian woman. I started meeting a lot of my friends who were in Iran at the time of the revolution. And all of this sort of culminated in a visual vocabulary a kind of conceptual direction, understanding that I'm living outside of Iran, that I will never be making anything that it's even close to the truth or even interested in truth or documentary, but really raising a series of questions from the point of view of an Iranian woman, Iranian woman artist living outside of Iran. And, clearly questions about the revolution. The question about what was the foundation of this revolution? How did it develop? Why did it happen? and more specifically focusing on all of that in relation to the situation of woman. And so then I developed a particular aesthetic, which is photography, writing, self portraits, a lot of which were influenced by Western art. People like Cindy Sherman and Frida Kahlo and God knows, so what I'm trying to say that by early 1990s I started to, establish a sort of aesthetic that I felt comfortable with a very minimalistic way, but the body, the veil, the text, the weapon, and the theme, which is religious fervor, feminism, violence, religion, political ideology. So I created my parameters, and I wasn't doing it for career. I was just like, I was just hungry for doing something that was not just working at the Storefront. And I had this small residency, whatever, and I remember Franklin Furnace, this very small not-for-profit organization in 1993, invited me to do a show, which was shocking as I had zero, history as an artist. So that all moved me to creating certain bodies of work, and that gave birth to some photographic images. And that's where everything started. The evolution really just grew from there very organically. One thing led to the other, one question led to the next question. And then my form continued to evolve from photography to video of course and an artist was born.

[00:18:06] B.: You mentioned a pivot to video. What inspired or motivated your integration of, video into your practice in addition to photography and what would you really consider your first successful video piece?

[00:18:22] Shirin: Actually my first exhibition in 1993 at Franklin Furnace, I had a super eight film that actually burnt during the opening. It was just non-existent after the opening, I think it lasted like a half an hour and then a video. So I always was very interested in motion picture. But I didn't really pursue it until, seriously, until 1998. And I just wanna say, I consider myself a totally non-traditional artist in a way that I came to become an artist to a medium of photography that I've never studied. And I just posed for them and I collaborated with the photographer. So I felt a certain freedom in a way that, look, I can do anything. I just have to bring collaborators who know something about that medium, that language, And also I have to say that, when I started to do the photography it was really fun. Learning to write calligraphy over the images, discovering that I can develop a better handwriting and the kind of ink that I should use that is archival, all these technical issues. But after a certain point, it became too labor driven, I became very frustrated about the fact that my work was so politically charged and yet here I was by the success of my photographs, I was just sitting at home making more editions of every photographs for sale. And there was something hypocritical about this idea of me making things for the market in that sense. And there was something beautiful about how ephemeral video was and how it was about experiencing something, a story a or emotion rather than, something that is an object that people can buy and, and collect. So throughout my career I've been going back and forth between being faithful and unfaithful to photography and always running toward video and film because they're so opposite to what photography is both in terms of the medium and in terms of the relationship to the audience. And let me explain to you why I do like photography because I feel that what's really great about photography is that it's really about capturing a single moment and that you could really go under the skin. I mean, for me it's portraiture, nothing more. That you are able to capture human emotion. A simple gaze in absolute minimalism that tells you everything. And it could be very powerful or not. But with video and filmmaking, you are telling the story. You need production design, you need the strength of the camera, the music, sound design, performance, choreography, all of those have to go in the right direction. So I'm really challenged by these completely opposite demands, if that makes sense. Where you could in principle have a same idea, same concept, but when you approach it, in a moving picture rather than still photography, it's just completely different, language and I, as the person behind it, have learned that I'm in love with both of those mediums. And I understand that I have certain relationship to one and another relationship to the other. I'm not sure which one I'm better at, but I love, absolutely love taking photographs of people, and really it's just about emotions. it's just timeless emotions of people who become monuments. Ordinary citizens become monuments, where with video, I love the idea of becoming a storyteller. And whether it's a two hour movie or a 15 minute video, it's something that I'm totally in love with and be able to be challenged of, editing and, working with an actor, working on locations with a production designer, with a musician, sound designer. It's just so tough. where with photography, you're just sitting in front of one character, But I like that. I like the intimacy there, yet the lack of intimacy in the other

[00:22:40] B.: In 2009, after, , 16 plus years of working as a media artist, , you debuted your first feature length film, Women Without Men, and of course you would go on to direct two more feature films in the following years. What led you to making that leap and, working within that context, which of course is very, very different? 

[00:23:04] Shirin: It goes back to what we are told as artists when we are very young at school, that basically you are good at something and you just keep repeating it until you even get better, until you die . Well, that's the opposite direction I've taken. I've been extremely nomadic and restless about my selection of the mediums, my approach to the audience, the collaborators. For me came the success of entering the art world in, being in the Venice Biennial in 1995, 1999 being in Documenta, being in major galleries, museums, but then came in early 2000, I think two or one. Where again, the same way that I questioned my relationship to photography, to video, where it became so collectible and became a market driven enterprise, I felt that I needed to take a break from the art world. I felt that I needed to challenge myself by embracing a completely different form, but a completely different industry where of course there is the market and that involves cinema and, films have to be distributed and sold and people have to buy tickets. But ultimately the artist doesn't make any money. I don't, certainly, I've never done, so money is never part of the equation. And it took me six years to make the first film, another six years to make the second film. It was a true education in cinema. most people told me, do not do this. This is just going to be so, you make a very bad film and people in the art world would forget who you are. Well, I didn't fail. I got the best director award, the Silver Lion at Venice Film Festival in 2009. And the film was distributed. It was not a failure. And the art world didn't forget me, but it did give me the satisfaction that even though I was no longer young, that I was on the edge, that I was a beginner and that I was new to a whole new audience who had no idea about my work as a visual artist. And that gave me a great satisfaction that I had reinvented myself. And I reiterate that is completely opposite to, in my opinion, in the art education, that you just don't do that. I believe Arthur Jafa for example, some of Steve McQueen, some of the other artists have done that you know, where they have totally, I mean, Arthur Jafa started as a filmmaker and then really went deep into the art world where Steve McQueen started as a video artist, and then when big into Film and won a Oscar. I don't say that I'm very ambitious or I'm very good at anything, but I do fall into a category of very nomadic artists, I suppose.

[00:25:57] B.: Yeah, I can hear this periodic restlessness. I wonder, you know, has directing feature length films within that whole, industrial setting, has that influenced your studio practice in any ways over the years?

[00:26:10] Shirin: Yes. I think that, first of all, just talking about the form working in cinema has influenced my video art. I used to make this very evocative enigmatic videos like Turbulent, Rapture, Fervor. There were some protagonists, but they were really made with the logic of photography moving. But if you really look progressively later to , the Dreamers trilogy, like Sarah, Roja, Illusions and Mirrors some of my later videos, they are definitely character driven. They're more psychological, they're more cinematic. And even though they're still quite abstract and enigmatic they're definitely influenced by my work in cinema. And my latest work certainly is. collaborators work with me on photography, video, and movie. And so they have also learned to really broaden their horizon and, tendencies to, you know, I also work with opera. I've directed two operas, and I'm doing the third in 2025. So I'm sometimes working with the same people who then transfer to another completely medium, another team of people, collaborators and, audience. And so this has become a tradition in my studio that whoever works with me understands that I'm not a one-liner. I'm not like just doing this, it's not easy. It's not really easy. These transitions are often very confusing for people, but I just don't know any other way.

[00:27:44] B.: When you make these leaps to a new discipline, is there ever anything that you leave on the cutting room floor?

[00:27:51] Shirin: It's interesting because I have never started an idea in any medium that I've not actually finished. And I have to say my latest work when I came up with the idea and I didn't talk about it to many people, and I, thought to myself, well, this one is gonna be really strange and it will never happen, and I won't even talk about it to people because it's so bizarre that people are gonna think I'm mad. So it took me a few months that even I talked to my husband, who is my. First and most collaborator. And I was very shocked. He said, I like this idea. We should do it. I said, are you really serious? You think we should do this? This is such a bizarre idea. And guess what? We did it. So it's very rare. I have to say that there have been times where I've had an idea and I do it and is not a good ending. The work is not very good. I have to admit to that. but I've never came up with a seed of an idea that I didn't actually achieve it. I've done it. Actually I take it back. There's been one project that has been in my mind a film that I wanted to make for years and years that I still haven't made it. And every few years it comes back to me and say, I really still like to do this film. But that's the only one. But anything else that I've set out to do, strangely enough, we have done it.

[00:29:15] B.: Well you mentioned your new piece, so, I actually wanna talk about that. You know, you just opened a new show at Gladstone Gallery's 515 West 24th Street location in Chelsea called The Fury. And the show features a series of photographic prints and a few of which have additions of hand painted calligraphy as well as a large two channel video installation. I was wondering if you could give us a sort of virtual walking tour of the show. You know, What would somebody see if they visited?

[00:29:43] Shirin: That idea developed from my obsession with pursuing the condition of political woman prisoners who once captured often are sexually assaulted and eventually mentally disabled. And, very often even after they're freed they commit suicide. And this was an idea that brew in me, were a year ago because I was following the trial of this notorious Iranian prosecutor who's been captured in Sweden and he was on trial and many people went and testified and I was just, Devastated by some of the stories and how he was responsible with thousands of political prisoners massacre, but also the condition of woman prisoners. Anyway I, have been obsessively also working on the question of, female body in relation to, particularly in relation to my country Iran to tradition, to religion, to politics, to ideology, Woman of Allah to, God knows every series I worked with has been focused on women and particularly women's body in relation to those subjects. very often the situation of women in relation to shame, sin, guilt, repulsion that's how we are known to feel about our bodies and how it should be concealed because it causes temptation for opposite sex. So much of my work has raised those issues in relation to the woman's body. But for the first time, I wanted to raise the issue of female body in relation to both desire, sexuality, eroticism, yet violence and sexual assault and pain and suffering. And it's interesting because this all happened before the current Woman Life Freedom Revolution that is transpiring in Iran currently, where many women are arrested, raped, and, many of them are committing suicide after they are freed. It's just ironic. But anyway, history continues to repeat itself. So when you enter the gallery you are faced with images of women who on the one wall are a woman who are nude, but with this incredible sense of pride, dignity, confidence about their naked body, regardless of their age, their size and their background. Everybody is quite comfortable with who they are is as if here I am. This is my naked body, which is something I've never done before. On another side of the wall, you see images of woman who are clearly bruised and in pain and that are violated. So for me, this was very similar narrative to the video where you see a female protagonist who in my mind, is sort of walking in that boundary between illusion and reality. In my mind, she's not an ordinary woman, but someone who's unable to cope with reality and has lost it. And she at one side is dancing to this imaginary man in uniform. And then she's walking in New York on the streets and really feeling disjointed as she cannot even Relate to the passerbys and they cannot relate to her. All of this culminating to a kind of a emotional breakdown where her dance turns into pain and, she runs into the street naked. And then that causes a sense of protest and other people's showing their solidarity to her and that her presence sort of unleashes their rage and sort of goes into kind of strange dance dance of protests, dance of rage and destruction. So, I hope that this would be a piece that I don't have to really translate as much as some of my other work that the emotions speak for themselves to my Western as well as Iranian friends. Because it is truly, although it references Iran, it's really truly touching on something quite humane and quite universal.

[00:33:44] B.: You mentioned that this whole body of work was created prior to, the whole eruption of the Women Life Freedom Revolution and uprising currently in Iran, is there anything that feels different to you in this particular moment in time with the current protests that are going on versus, the past?

[00:34:04] Shirin: Absolutely. I mean, we were working on this body of work, both the video editing and the photographs as our computer was 24 hours on the opposition media Iranian language, listening to the updates of the revolution, the protest, the arrest, the executions and all kinds of things. And it was really paralyzing. And of course I became quite active. And it was really difficult to focus on the show. Active by participating in protest, by giving interviews by using my work as a vehicle to, be a voice for Iranian woman. And extremely emotional and a tough time because we didn't know where this was all heading. So every morning when we woke up we waited for the news of either the revolution is succeeding or has been suppressed and how many people have been executed. And it just it continues to be like that today actually, which is amazing, four and a half months later. It's been a roller coaster and at times one feels quite fatigued by the incredible devastating footage and, images of people in Iran living under this hardship. And my family, of course living in Iran. So, needless to say, we've been on the edge and making this work during this time felt ironic and felt extremely emotional. And I knew that some people would rush to criticize me, saying, oh, she rushed to make this work because it was so controversial at the moment and you know, but opposite, I, made this work months before this happened and this was really unbelievable. Having been politically active and especially this last four months and watching a whole nation going through such upheaval, it really changes your priorities. And if you're an artist living. in the world that is focused on the art world and the market and the critics and the ambition of the career, this museum, that museum it may be actually not a good thing. I feel in some ways that the situation in Iran has given me a very healthy distance from why I make art and my position as an artist and why maybe I'm not as affected if people don't buy my work or people write badly about my work, or don't write about my work, it won't affect me as profoundly as it did before because, I'm watching people die. I'm watching people in prison. I'm watching people on hunger strike. I mean, last night I heard about one of our most famous Iranian filmmakers, Jafar Panahi, who's a friend of mine, has now gone under strike where he does not drink or eat until he's free. He's gonna die, and they're not gonna free him. And I'm thinking, how could I think about my exhibition and, and the reaction? Meanwhile, this poor guy has been for months in prison, one of our finest living directors, you see? So why I don't really also feel so comfortable being so in the middle of politics, and I don't want to really, I'm a little scared of it. To be honest. I've had some difficult things happen to me and some horrible messages and issues and attacks that is really kind of devastating. at the same time, it's giving me this distance that it's important to me as a human being. And it makes me realize that I don't just make art for the art world. Oh, I love for the art world to see it, but I really want the people, general people also to see it and for it to resonate for it to communicate. And I don't mind criticism on that kind. And, so I think that in some ways it's a mixed blessing. Being born to a country that, gives you that no distance from political reality.

[00:38:10] B.: How do you envision what's currently going on ending?

[00:38:15] Shirin: Things are changing day by day. At the beginning was this incredible, tremendous euphoric energy. Like, oh my God, something is happening that we never thought it would happen in our lifetime. First female revolution by Iranian woman, and amazing courage. And then immediately was the backlash, the arrest, the tortures, the presentments and the executions, which was like devastating. Devastating and paralyzing. Then it was like, no, no, we cannot give up. We cannot let this momentum stop. So all the people on the outside started to unify and, masses of people, like a hundred thousand people showed up on the streets of Berlin. And, I don't know, just incredible amount of people were unified outside of Iran. And to keep this momentum going and to get the international community to focus on this and help us. And then came to a moment where Iranian people themselves became very divided because of who's gonna lead this revolution, who is going to be in the next, whatever. And, sadly we started to see, oh my God, all this unity is becoming fragmented and going the wrong place. But then came this last few days where we see again this renewed sense of unity. And because I really do follow, and I'm also living with a person who is 24 hours on to this, and he is writing and he is focusing on this and my friends, of course. but now on the street level in Iran, there are not so many protests is the winter the government has arrested and really has intimidated people. So it's a pointless issue of getting onto the street and then next you're in the prison. So the movement, the opposition has changed strategies to strikes, to other forms of protest, which is fine. And what I can say to you that it's unbelievable that this revolution, it continues to move, but there have been some low moments. And some up moments. And, the thing is, many people say this revolution will take months, if not years. So be patient, where some people want to rush. believe that there's a lot of hope. There's a light at the end of this dark tunnel.

[00:40:29] B.: So speaking of protest, In your new video installation, there's a scene that you were describing, you know, this dance and this choreography that ends in this kind of chaos. And, it really had a lot of reverberations of, the protests in 2020. It, it almost looked like it could have been from 2020 because it's set in Brooklyn. I would imagine that must have been a very, very intentional choice for you. What was that significance for you?

[00:40:53] Shirin: It's very interesting because how the psychology of people works in the way that, for example, we experienced George Floyd, the baseless murder of this poor man. And then that sparked a whole strongest sense of movement and protest. And, any time there is this political injustice, Mahsa Amini was murdered and that, just unleashed this revolution. For me in this video was like these people saw one person's pain and injustice on her, and that was enough for them to express their own frustration about a system that is unjust. And they should have done something about it and they haven't. So it's, almost like, we as people are always like waiting for something happen to someone else to show our own frustrations. Like I have lived in exile that I've been badly mistreated by this government. Millions of Iranian people have been badly treated by this government, but they have never dared to do anything about it. But they see an innocent, beautiful, young woman being killed for showing a little bit of hair showing, and then that's all it takes because her pain and your own pain culminates into this protest. And for me, George Floyd touched on extreme racism that still exists in this country and the unfairness, the injustice for the black people. And we've had number of different incidents in New York, in Brooklyn, very often. So for me It's our humanity in a way that we are so afraid to show our outrage, but then when something sparks that something happens to someone else, like if I'm riding on the subway and I see someone harming somebody else, I'm going to definitely go to their rescue. no matter what, I'm going to help that person. I don't care who, where that person is from. But if that person is unjustly treated, as a human being, it's my task, my job to help that person. So for me it was like, here's a woman from Iran. Here's a woman who's poorly treated by the Iranian government, but she's in Brooklyn. And suddenly this Hispanic, African-American white people on the street of Brooklyn are the ones who help her, who come to show her solidarity, who identify with her pain. That all of our differences, all of our cultural, religious, national boundaries and differences disappear because we are just human beings. And to be very honest, me as an immigrant living in Bushwick, these are my communities, yet I'm Iranian. I put my headphone, I listen to Persian music. But these are the people that if something happened to me, they will come to my help. I love them. and so this work is as much about my experience as an Iranian American immigrant living in Brooklyn and loving the fact that we as a working, class immigrant community relate to each other's pain of being minorities, of being treated poorly, often politically, economically. So for me, this, ending of this video was an expression of my relationship to my community in Brooklyn and how I deeply identify with African Americans, with the Hispanic, with all the minorities who are cornered one way or the other. I really wanted to have a setting, a location that screamed out this is Brooklyn or Queens, New York, with the subway on the top and the dirty streets, the crowds of people, the crazy traffic, the chaos. But I often, walk around Brooklyn or I, go through subways and I feel so strange because I feel like an outsider. I feel like I'm such a foreigner to these people. And so this feeling of being a foreigner to the others, but at the same time feeling like they're the closest people you have as a person who never goes home. like this is as close as it gets. These people are your community. So the motion, the slow motion, and the surrealism of the way she was looking at the people and that they seem it was a highly stylized infrared. They were blurred or they were like not real. Yet she was real. And then at the end she became the unreal and they became real is for me, the way I rationalize it is this feeling of being a stranger, of being a foreigner, and yet being totally one with others. I don't know how to explain it. I've lived that life forever in New York where I'm constantly feeling like an outsider, but then constantly feeling like this is where I belong. That Black person sitting next to me, he is my family. He is my best friend. That Hispanic person who doesn't even speak a word of English. When I buy my empanadas every morning that bodega I go to, they're the closest people to me. They love me and I love them. Yet I'm strange to them and they're strange to me. They have no clue where I come from. Where is my history? What is my political issue? I have no clue what I do. I have no clue about them, but we are so close and that boundary between human beings in a culture such as Brooklyn, where people are coming from all facets of life, from Africans, from people, from all parts of South America, to Eastern Europe, to God knows all over the America, is a fantastic community, a melting pot. And making this video actually even the process of it was fantastic because I didn't have to explain to any of the people what was the message that I was trying to get across. And most of them didn't even speak English, like the Africans who danced, and yet they related to the topic, to the emotions, to the pain.

[00:47:24] B.: While we're here conversationally in Brooklyn, I wanna talk a bit about your studio, cause I know your studio's based there. Who do you work with and does that process look like for you?

[00:47:35] Shirin: I'm known for working with the same people over and over and over again. That's one my signature. for example, just to talk about my film and video work, I worked with my husband, Shoja Azari, who's been very involved with development of the concepts and producing and editing. And then same cinematographer I worked with Turbulent, one of my first videos to the latest work the production designers. And I worked with Sheila Vand the actress that worked with Land of Dreams movie video, now in this new video I worked with the same production designer. I work with the same composers and sound designers. Because I feel that, it takes a long time to, negotiate each other's artistic tendencies and for someone to really get to know you so well. Though it is exciting sometimes to collaborate with new partners like I did with the feature Land of Dreams. I worked with Matt Dylan or, some of the Isabella Rossellini for the first time. It is scary but exciting. But generally there's something about like a comfort zone working with a kind of a tribe or a community of artists that you end up supporting each other. For example, most of these people are themselves artists on their own rights, and they do their own work. So I try to help them, you in the same way. So we are majority Iranians. Except Giulia Theodoli, who is Italian. Whether we're doing calligraphy on the photographs or whether we are making the videos. But of course they're also non Iranians, but majority of us are Iranians. Some of them go back and forth to Iran. Some of them do not. But in a way we, give each other this support socially, politically, culturally and financially. Anything I make, I share with them, and that's a good situation. I think we try to help each other and I create this, circle of people each talented, you know, in different category. Somebody has good handwriting, somebody's a great cinematographer, somebody's a great musician and sound designer or an actress, or production designer or it's fantastic. So we work together and we create arts and we economically help each other and I find it very satisfying. It's a family. 

[00:49:56] B.: With your time-based media art over the years, I'm curious if you've encountered any challenges when it comes to conservation of your work?

[00:50:05] Shirin: As of two, three years ago, I decided that I no longer want to protect my work, my photographs with glaze, because basically that protects it from any hand touch or anything because these are all original ink on the photographs. So in the smallest contact of a human hand is destroyed. But it was really important to me that people see the handwriting close by and that there's no reflection that it feels like a painting almost. And it's interesting because the other night at the opening, there were a lot of people, and I saw people nearly rubbing and I was like, okay, this is my biggest nightmare and so I said, run to the gallery and say, oh, please, can you just watch, watch. So yeah, there is a risk involved. I mean, that's the only risk you can expect from my work is the exposure of calligraphy to the people and if somebody just touches it. But otherwise, it's important to me that people understand that these are not photoshopped. This is somebody's labor and long hours of work. Everything is applied directly on the surface of the photographs after his printed. it changes everything. That's more important to me than losing a work of art.

[00:51:19] B.: That's incredible. So, Shirin, we have taken this incredible tour of your origins and your life's work and your evolution as an artist. And I know you just opened this new show so you might be taking a very well earned breather, I'm sure you are, what's exciting you in the studio these days?

[00:51:38] Shirin: Well, first just to be very honest, right after this incredible night, I went through a complete mental, physical crash, because, between the few months of hardworking and also the whole revolution, et cetera. So, it was just overwhelming. But now I am doing a new opera in 2025 at the Opera House in Paris. I'm going on Monday to Paris to talk to them. I am dreaming about this film that I never did that I'd like to start imagining doing it. There are some exhibitions traveling of the work that we've already done, which is less worrisome because the work is pretty much done. But I am going to go back to opera and, future length film. I think that's what it looks like. And then basically just trying to stay focused in my mind and, just take it day by day and, I'm trying to not travel so much and just really focus in my life and what I really just be able to reflect a bit because I don't wanna be, on a airplane every other day or I just wanna be able to have a time to reflect.

[00:52:45] B.: So we have a fair amount of young artists that listen to this show, so I'm curious if we could end things with any parting words of advice that you might want to leave for them.

[00:52:57] Shirin: I have two advice for young friends, and first of all, never ever make art or film as a career. As a career enterprise. Just do it because you absolutely have this urge to do it. I think that's the number one. The second is to continue to experiment. Never ever think that you have to find your signature work or that you have to find something that you can own it, and then, repeat it. Just explore new ways, explore new languages, and, be free. I think freedom is the greatest gift an artist can have. And sadly, the institutions, the art institutions, the galleries and, even the collectors don't often encourage that freedom to artists, to surprise them, to do whatever they wish. And I, I have to say make sure that you are free. And that you are having other people follow you, that you are not following them.

[00:54:00] B.: Great advice. Well, Shirin thank you so, so much for coming on the show and for taking the time. I have been really just a lifelong devotee of your work and it's really just such a treat to get to meet you and spend this time with you. So I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

[00:54:16] Shirin: Thank you. And I'm so glad to have a young person like you devoted to my work, I really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for having me.

[00:54:24] B.: And thank you, dear listener for joining us for this week's conversation with the one and only Shirin Neshat as always, if you like what you're hearing on the show, listener support is hugely important to making it all happen. You can always join us over at patreon.com/artobsolescence, or if you are interested in making a one-time tax deductible gift through our fiscal sponsor, the New York Foundation for the Arts. You can do so over at artandobsolescence.com/donate and there, you can also find the full episode archive, including full transcripts and show notes. Last, but not least you can always find us on social media @artobsolescence until next time. Take care of my friends. My name is Ben Fino-Radin and this has been Art and Obsolescence.