A magic-realism novel on the lot of women in Iran whose heroines reject men and marriage. One woman turns herself into a tree in order to preserve her virginity, another is born anew after being killed by her brother for disobedience.
As an Iranian woman, Shirin Neshat's startling photographs convey a power that is more than merely exotic. Veiled women brandish guns in defiant stances, with Arabic calligraphy drawn upon the background of the photos. Though their non-Western iconography may at first disorient the viewer, these pictures have a boldly stylized look that is utterly compelling.
Tracing the Iranian-born artist's personal journey in exile from her native Iran, this book presents Shirin Neshat's iconic early videos and photographs along with new work making its global debut. In the 1990s, Shirin Neshat's startling black-and-white videos of Iranian women won enormous praise for their poetic reflections on post-revolutionary life in her native country. Writing in the New Yorker, Peter Schjeldahl called her multi-screen video meditations on the culture of the chador in Islamic Iran "the first undoubtable masterpieces of video installation." Over the next twenty-five years Neshat's work has continued its passionate engagement with ancient and recent Iranian history, extending its reach to the universal experience of living in exile and the human impact of political revolution. This book connects Neshat's early video and photographic works--including haunting films such as Rapture, 1999 and Tooba, 2002--to her current projects which focus on the relation of home to exile and dreams such as The Home of My Eyes, 2015, and a new, never-before-seen project, Land of Dreams, 2019. It includes numerous stills from her series, Dreamers, in which she documents the lives of outsiders and exiles in the United States. This volume also includes essays by prominent Iranian cultural figures as well as an interview with the artist. Neshat has always been a voice for those whose individual freedoms are under attack. With this monograph, her audience will gain a deeper understanding of Neshat's own emotional, psychological, and political identities, and how they have helped her create compassionate portraits of the fraught and delicate spaces between attachment and alienation. Published with The Broad
Does the study of aesthetics have tangible effects in the real world? Does examining the work of diaspora writers and artists change our view of “the Other”? In this thoughtful book, Ebrahimi argues that an education in the humanities is as essential as one in politics and ethics, critically training the imagination toward greater empathy. Despite the surge in Iranian memoirs, their contributions to debunking an abstract idea of terror and their role in encouraging democratic thinking remain understudied. In examining creative work by women of Iranian descent, Ebrahimi argues that Shirin Neshat, Marjane Satrapi, and Parsua Bashi make the Other familiar and break a cycle of reactionary xenophobia. These authors, instead of relying on indignation, build imaginative bridges in their work that make it impossible to blame one evil, external enemy. Ebrahimi explores both classic and hybrid art forms, including graphic novels and photo-poetry, to advocate for the importance of aesthetics to inform and influence a global community. Drawing on the theories of Rancière, Butler, Arendt, and Levinas, Ebrahimi identifies the ways in which these works give a human face to the Other, creating the space and language to imagine a new political and ethical landscape.
An critically-acclaimed Iranian author makes his American literary debut with this powerful and harrowing psychological portrait of modern Iran—an unprecedented and urgent work of fiction with echoes of The Stranger, 1984, and The Orphan Master’s Son—that exposes the oppressive and corrosive power of the state to bend individual lives. Yunus Turabi, a bus driver in Tehran, leads an unremarkable life. A solitary man since the unexpected deaths of his father and mother years ago, he is decidedly apolitical—even during the driver’s strike and its bloody end. But everyone has their breaking point, and Yunus has reached his. Handcuffed and blindfolded, he is taken to the infamous Evin prison for political dissidents. Inside this stark, strangely ordered world, his fate becomes entwined with Hajj Saeed, his personal interrogator. The two develop a disturbing yet interdependent relationship, with each playing his assigned role in a high stakes psychological game of cat and mouse, where Yunus endures a mind-bending cycle of solitary confinement and interrogation. In their startlingly intimate exchanges, Yunus’s life begins to unfold—from his childhood memories growing up in a freer Iran to his heartbreaking betrayal of his only friend. As Yunus struggles to hold on to his sanity and evade Saeed’s increasingly undeniable accusations, he must eventually make an impossible choice: continue fighting or submit to the system of lies upholding Iran’s power. Gripping, startling, and masterfully told, Then the Fish Swallowed Him is a haunting story of life under despotism.
When it was first published in the author's native country, THE PALACE OF DREAMS was immediately banned. The novel revolves around a secret ministry whose task is not just to spy on its citizens, but to collect and interpret their dreams. An entire nation's unconscious is thus tapped and meticulously laid bare in the form of images and symbols of the dreaming mind.
An Iranian woman forges her own path through life in this “stylishly original contribution to modern feminist literature” (Publishers Weekly). After her father’s death, fourteen-year-old Touba takes her family’s financial security into her own hands by proposing to a fifty-two-year-old relative. But, intimidated by her outspoken nature, Touba’s husband soon divorces her. When she marries again, it is to a prince with whom she experiences tenderness and physical passion and bears four children—but their relationship sours when he proves unfaithful. Touba is granted a divorce, and as her unconventional life continues, she becomes the matriarch of an ever-changing household of family members and refugees . . . Hailed as “one of the unsurpassed masterpieces of modern Persian literature” (Iranian.com), Touba and the Meaning of Night explores the ongoing tensions between rationalism and mysticism, tradition and modernity, male dominance and female will—all from a distinctly Iranian viewpoint. Defying both Western stereotypes of Iranian women and expectations of literary form, this beautiful novel reflects the unique voice of its author as well as an important tradition in Persian women’s writing. “Parsipur’s novel carries the reader on a mystical and emotional odyssey spanning eight decades of Iranian cultural, political, and religious history . . . rewarding and enlightening.” —Booklist “A sweeping chronicle of modern Iranian history and a study of the plight of twentieth-century Iranian women . . . [displaying] deft utilization of magic realism and Persian myths . . . rich and well-crafted.” —Library Journal
Begun in 1973, Audio Arts is a one-of-a-kind venture: an audio magazine of new interviews with the world's most important contemporary artists. Distributed in cassette format until 2002 and on CD from 2003-07, the interviews in Audio Arts have never before been published. Speaking of Art collects the 50 best interviews from the Audio Arts archive. These range from towering figures in art history (Joseph Beuys, Frank Stella, John Cage) to the current stars of the contemporary scene (Wolfgang Tillmans, Thomas Demand, Mike Nelson). At a future date all 350 interview transcripts from the Audio Arts archive will be unveiled on the Phaidon web site, creating an unparalleled online resource that will be a trove for artists, students, researchers and art fans everywhere.
"This catalogue is published in conjunction with the exhibition Shirin Neshat: Facing History, organized by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian institution, Wahington DC May18- September 20, 2015"--Title page verso.