Wed, December 10, 2008
Faurschou Beijing is pleased to present "Women without Men" – a monumental film opus by the Iranian-American artist Shirin Neshat. It' s her first exhibition in China.
Shirin Neshat is known for her poetic and beautiful photographs and video films portraying Islamic culture in conceptual and stylized form. Being an Iranian living most of her life in exile in USA, she has with strength portrayed the many complexities within current Islamic culture, between religion and secularization, women and men, tradition and modernity, East and West. She is thus providing us with more varied images of fundamental human problems in contemporary Islamic culture, rather than the simplistic, stereotypically negative images of Islam we have become used to seeing in the media after 9/11.
"Women without Men" is a series of 5 films that Shirin Neshat has created between 2004- 2008. The film narratives are based on the controversial magical realist novel "Women without Men" from 1989 by the Iranian author Shahrnush Parsipur, whose entire literary oeuvre is banned in Iran today.
Shirin Neshat is not creating a straightforward film version of the novel but rather her own interpretation of the five female main characters: Mahdokht, Zarin, Munis, Faezeh and Farokh Legha. Shirin Neshat retains the magic realism of the novel and allows the supernatural and surreal to interact with the stories.
It is an aesthetically overwhelming and mentally absorbing experience to see "Women without Men". Shirin Neshat is one of the most important and most interesting contemporary artists today, bringing into the focus the importance of cultural differences.
As viewers we are facing films in farsi without translation – we are brought into the uncertain role of being the listeners and the viewers to something we do not immediately understand – a role – people from other cultures are brought to on a daily basis in our time of globalisation and migration.
When
Dec 11th, 10am - 6pm
Ends Jan 18th
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday every week
Where
Faurschou Beijing Details
Contact
Faurschou Beijng
8459-9316, 5978-9316
798 Art District, 2 Jiuxianqiao Lu,
