The Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea in Milan presents the first major solo exhibition in Italy of Iranian artist Shirin Neshat (1957, Qazvin), winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1999, the Silver Lion for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival in 2009, and the Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo in 2017. The exhibition traces over thirty years of her career through nearly two hundred photographic works and a dozen video installations, now part of major museum collections worldwide, including the Whitney Museum, MoMA, the Guggenheim in New York, and Tate Modern.
Neshat interprets history and contemporary issues—not only of her home country, Iran, but of the world—through the lens of women. From her early 1990s “Women of Allah” series, featuring female bodies inscribed with poetic calligraphy, to “The Fury”, a video installation that foreshadowed the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, her work explores complex narratives. However, her research goes beyond gender issues, using the duality of men and women as a starting point to examine themes of belonging and exile, health and mental distress, dream and reality.
Curated by Diego Sileo and Beatrice Benedetti.