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Shirin Neshat: Women of Allah

Laura-Jayne Apelt
Write About Art 4
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Iranian visual artist, Shirin Neshat demonstrates how social, political and psychological dimensions of women’s experience in contemporary Islamic societies can be conveyed through film, video, photography and installation. In her series Women of Allah (1993–1997), Neshat draws upon the power of art in an effort to raise the public’s consciousness about unspoken issues of the early nineties. While conceived as a response to the political circumstances of Iran in the early 1990s, Neshat’s work has proven to be a potent voice, which continues to inform, educate and even outrage both Western and Iranian audiences almost two decades later.
Shirin Neshat can be considered a powerful activist within the visual art world as she addresses and refers to the social, cultural and religious codes of Muslim societies. In particular, she deals with the impact of hierarchy and power on the social status of Iranian women. Throughout her work, Neshat’s inspiration is drawn from an exploration of Islam, which is regularly grossly simplified by the Australian media. Neshat’s work neither glorifies nor condemns Islam, but through the power of art as a form of activism, challenges viewers to rethink their preconceptions. In an interview between Neshat and Time (2000), Shirin stated, ‘I seek to untangle the ideology of Islam through my art’, arguing, ‘I’m creating work simply to entice a dialogue … I am only asking questions’. Neshat’s Women of Allah expresses the poetic, philosophical and metaphorical, as well as the complex levels of intellectual abstraction.

Women of Allah consists of a series of eleven monochrome photographs showing Neshat and other Islamic women in their traditional Islamic veils. The aesthetic of these black and white photographs mimics a collection of newspaper clippings... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline

Shirin Neshat, Rebellious Silence, 1994. B&W RC print and ink. Photograph Cynthia Preston. © Shirin Neshat

Shirin Neshat, Rebellious Silence, 1994. B&W RC print and ink. Photograph Cynthia Preston. © Shirin Neshat

Shirin Neshat, Guardians of Revolution (Women of Allah Series), 1994. B&W RC print and ink. Photograph Cynthia Preston. © Shirin Neshat. Images courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York.

Shirin Neshat, Guardians of Revolution (Women of Allah Series), 1994. B&W RC print and ink. Photograph Cynthia Preston. © Shirin Neshat. Images courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York.