W.M. Hunt

 #somereallygoodones, #shrinneshat, #storyteller

Shirin Neshat gives us flashes of epic tales, stories in the spirit and tradition of the Mahabharata, here referencing the Islamic world rather than Hindu.  They are elliptical; we witness encounters and strange scenes.  Context is not so important as scale; she employs waves of individuals in clusters or masses spiralling or swarming across the landscape.  Time is irrelevant; scenes transpire now or in any  epoch.  The subject is invariably self-determination and survival.

The artist works across many media from photography to film and video, even opera.

The staged tightly bound groups have an organic appeal that engages us.  Sometimes there is the contrast of black versus white, men opposite women.  In video from, the action is liquid and spills across the screen.

The stills, however, can behave differently when the figures are not together but rather, scattered, running amok without direction or purpose.  The chaos is chilling and suggests desperation even panic.  There aren’t any comforting aesthetic organizing elements — control.  Everyone is on their own, and it is terrifying as if rapture can only be the product of physical, psychological and emotional meltdown, as if self-immolation is required for self realization.

We must escape into rapture.   

There is the oddest connection to Mashisa Fukase’s classic series  “Ravens”, with Neshat’s villagers like shorebirds a the water’s edge.

Neshat is an expatriate Iranian artist living in the United States, and her experience of exile is reflected in dramatizing the condition of women (and men) in contemporary Islam.  It all seems like part of a much greater story told out of sequence with hundreds of unidentified or unidentifiable players.  Her histories are these collective experiences.  The success of that for me is not how it is resolved but rather the opposite.  We’re left uneasy and questioning.

©2022

#some reallygoodones, “theunseeneye, #wmhunt”, #collectiondancingbear, #collectionblindpirate, #greatphotographs, #collectingislikerunningaroundinathunderstormhopingyoullbehitbylightning, #aphotograpssogooditmakesyoufartlightning, #photographychangemylifeitgavemeone, #shirinneshat, #storyteller, #rapture, #mahisafukase