Shirin Neshat

In this book and the exhibition it accompanies, Shirin Neshat (born 1957) looks at the connections between ancient history and the politics of the present in works that employ photography, calligraphy, poetry and filmmaking to explore the primal concepts of violence, passion and love that drive human history. These include the various photographic series Neshat produced in the early 1990s and two video installations that address the historical, cultural and political realities on which the artist has focused for the past 30 years. In the photographic series Women of Allah (1993-97), the artist expresses her position on the situation in Iran following the Islamic Revolution in 1979. In her more recent series, The Book of Kings (2012) and Our House Is on Fire (2013), Neshat responds to political events throughout the Arab world, capturing the emotions of people she met after the Arab Spring.