Shirin

Neshat:

Born

of

Fire

The eye travels a precarious edge in Born of Fire, a riveting exhibition of work by Iranian-born artist Shirin Neshat. It features three of her acclaimed photographic series: “Women of Allah” (1993–97), “The Book of Kings” (2012), and “Land of Dreams” (2019). It also includes two double-channel videos, The Fury (2022) and Land of Dreams (2019), and a full-length Land of Dreams movie (2021), which will screen at the museum in August. Each of these works presents themes of alienation, repression, and identity through the lens of an artist shaped by dual cultural traditions.

In a recent interview, Neshat recalled the pivotal moment in her life when, as a student in Berkeley, California, she realized that she could not return home to her family in Iran. The fundamentalist regime established after the 1979 Islamic Revolution shattered the secular world of her youth. “My life was lived in the West,” she explained, “but Islamic and Persian culture is the source of my art. It lives between these two worlds.” Her bold photography and elusive films reflect this duality, traversing the psychic Iranian/American divide. While veiled women in chadors may seem remote from tattooed cowboys in the American Southwest, they turn out not to be. Neshat uncovers uncanny parallels between lives shaped by Islamic authoritarianism, and lives that reflect the failure of the American dream.