Iranian Contemporary Artist Speaks of exile, Diaspora, and Displacement

Shirin Neshat

Shirin Neshat started her artmaking in 1993, and her first exhibition was a set of photos called Women of Allah which proposed the issues of Neshat’s displacement within Islamic ideology and art. Born in 1957, Iran, she is one of the well-known, American-based contemporary artists of today, who has gone beyond to explore the issues of exile, diaspora, belonging, and displacement. In her series of photos, Neshat present the militant Muslim women that subvert the stereotype and examines the Islamic idea of martyrdom. All photographs are in black and white and in most of her photographs, she is including the Farsi or Arabic text on faces or hands, chador (which is the women cover), and showing gun in few of them.

Few years later, Neshat began working on video and sound installations which result Rapture in 1999, which was influenced by her Fervor. These two works including her earlier work called Turbulent has composed a “trilogy on human identity, inflected by differences in gender and culture, which situates the work at the heart of art world preoccupations today.”

Shirin Neshat, Rapture, 1999, video still. Images courtesy of the artist and Barbara Gladstone Gallery.

Rapture is a twelve minute poetic video in black and white which focuses on the differentiation of gender role both visually and spatially and addresses to the traditional and cultural aspect of patriarchy and fundamentalist society of Iran. After visiting Iran, Neshat started analyzing the differences between the western and eastern cultures and this emphasis has made a great impact on all of her artworks. Neshat’s powerful art is characterized by a visual lyricism and elegant beauty that is always captivating and occasionally confusing.

In today globalized world, artists such as Shirin Neshat play a significant role to represent the differences between the cultures of her homeland and home she currently lives in. As an Iranian, I feel privileged to look at Neshat’s work and compare and contrast my personal experiences through the different worlds. Also the foreign viewers, who never had experienced the Islamic country such as Iran, will definitely enjoy and get a sense of the way Neshat has illustrated her works through her own view.

By Jaleh Fotoohi

Check these two PBS interviews with Charlie Rose:  January 2002 and June 2006

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Manga Ormolu – Hybrid cultures in a globalized world

Manga Ormolu is one of Brendan Lee Satish Tang’s ceramic series, which amalgamates Ming Dynasty style porcelain with figures from Japanese anime and manga. The set is inspired by French ormolu, where Chinese ceramics were gilded with gold or bronze. Here Ming-style vases are usurped by futuristic robotic prosthetics, representing the ongoing process of globalization (as known as colonialism, nationalism, and capitalism) and of cultural appropriation. Tang criticizes the rate and extent of which globalization is increasing as we pass through various technological revolutions from agricultural, industrial, to now digital. The boundaries which define one’s identity are subjected to constant change, but now at an even faster pace.

Manga Ormolu version 4.0-c by Brendan Tang

The message of traditions taken over by technology and globalization and of cultures hybridizing and merging together reflects his personal history. Tang is born in Ireland to Trinidadian parents – father of Chinese decent and mother of Indian decent and now lives in Canada. Being ethnically-mixed and culturally diverse, he claims that he is used to a hybridized identity. Through Manga Ormolu, he wishes to address the issue of transformations in culture and identity in an amusing and not so serious fashion, while motivating viewers to become aware of globalization and to reflect on the realities of their world. 

By Athena Wong

Related Reviews: Global Art Database,Visual Art, Exhibition, Vancouver Art Gallery

Temporality and Fragility in Kristi Malakoff’s “Skull”

One of Kristi Malakoff’s current pieces at the Vancouver Art Gallery, entitled “Skull” brings together two opposing feelings, that of life and death, and through looking at celebratory ideas of death Malakoff is also bringing together the global with the local. The piece covers a large white wall in the gallery, and at closer look one is able to see the fine craftsmanship that Malakoff has put into this work. A labour intensive piece the work consists of over 12000 cut out paper flowers, mounted on the wall to form the design of a skull. Fifty different types of flowers are displayed, and have all been photographed by Malakoff, and then cut out one by one, and reassembled in the gallery space. The work speaks of death and beauty, both through the initial design; flowers into a skull, as well as the fact that the piece itself is so delicate, and ultimately will be destroyed once the exhibition is over. Life is fleeting, just as this project in fleeting, in the temporality of it, the bright colours and impressive detail will all be taken down, therefore the work must be celebrated while it is still here.

“Skull” by Kristi Malakoff

Also in terms of celebration this work brings up ideas around celebrations of death, such as The Day of the Dead, in Mexican culture. This is where Malakoff’s work leaves the local space of the Vancouver Art Gallery and becomes a global piece of work, that cross-culturally can be talked about, and understand in the same, yet different ways as well. Celebrations of death are something that happens across cultures, not just in Mexico, similar celebrations occur in Spain, and the Philippines. In this way this large skull allows viewers to think about death, and how it is celebrated in their own culture compared to other cultures. Malakoff uses a beautiful design to show off the beauty in life, and juxtaposes this with an image that is understood globally to be one of death or destruction, in this way she is speaking to a larger audience, and making her point more globally understood, instead of only understood for the space of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
A common theme of fragility and temporality occurs throughout Malakoff’s pieces, and she is able to use a theme such as this to provoke cross-cultural discussion around her work, as well as aesthetically, the fragility of her work can be appreciated for both its beauty as well as the hard work that evidently went into it. A large-scale piece such as this screams to be talked about, and that is exactly what “Skull” achieves, discussion around the beauty of the work as well as discussion around the larger themes the work represents.

Kristi Malakoff’s "Star" and "Target" (both on the floor)

 

Two other Kristi Malakoff pieces are currently being displayed at the Vancouver Art Gallery now, both her piece “Target” which is made of layers and layers of crate paper, as well as “Star” which has been constructed with actors tape in the shape of a star on the gallery floor, can also be seen in the “How Soon Is Now” exhibit, running until May 3rd, 2009.

By Heather Palmer

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Bottari: what comes next?

Sooja Kim’s Cities on the Move – 2727 kilometers Bottari Truck (1997) is an eleven-day performance piece where the artist fills a truck with bottari (bundles), and travels all over South Korea. The word bottari in the Korean language is defined as bundles wrapped in large cloth, where non-breakables items such as clothing, household utensils and books are kept. A Korean critic Airung Kim suggests that bottari is a symbol of not knowing one’s direction. This is significant in a country like Korea where a great number of people were obligated to leave their residences for reasons such as war or unemployment.

Today, Koreans leave their country to immigrate to North America in order to obtain better education and life. Therefore, bottari historically symbolizes both the refugees and tradesmen, transferring their belongings from one place to another. Furthermore, it represents mobility in an unlimited space, yet it remains as containers for what it holds. As the song in Laurie Anderson’s performance Empty Places (1989) tells us “we don’t know where we come from/we don’t know what we are”, Sooja Kim utilizes bottari as her “medium” to exemplify the universal notion of transition in life. Whether moving from one place to another or one phase of life to another, she evokes the questions of- what comes next? 

Jen Lee 

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Globally understood: Food as a basic need. A look at Pierre Leichner’s Food Wars

Pierre Leichner’s exhibit Food Wars is currently running at the Maple Ridge Art Gallery, and consists of sculptures as well as photographs depicting a societal view of issues of food of the current generation. The exhibit consists of large sculptures of shrimp tales and their varying stages of infection as well as photographs in which army men have been positioned throughout food items in order to create a scene about the battle of food. The sculptures have been beautifully crafted and within each one the viewer is exposed to some sort of abnormality, that which does not belong in the food.

This exhibit is successful in discussingcurrent issues when it comes to what we eat and what is going into our food to keep it preserved. As well, the issue of food becoming so abstract and foreign from what it originally is, as it becomes pre-packaged, etc. that we loose track of what food is considered natural anymore. An exhibit such as this can be put into the category of global art in that it is able to discuss an issue that can be understood world wide, food is everyone’s basic need, and a piece like this is able to question the complex way in which food has evolved to more than just a basic need but a battle, or for some people a struggle for survival.

Heather Palmer

 

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New economic and social policies for an interactive age

Oliver Russler’s Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies is a thematic interactive art installation that challenges the audience to look their own country’s economic policies verses another country’s economic policies; what works and what does not work is very often debatable. The piece includes interviews from people all over the world, from the United States to Mexico to Denmark and their ideas for different social and economic models. They also come from a variety of disciplines from economists to political scientists, from authors and to historians. However, they all have one thing in common; they all reject a capitalist system of rule; proving that while very often our cultures disagree on many concepts, but there are some rejections that are universal.

 

Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies 2003 - 2008, (ongoing), installation

 

All of the interviews have been translated into English with the intention that Russle wanted to appeal to a more global market. On the floor and the wall near each television screen is a quote that is significant to the alternate model that is being talked about in the particular interview that is playing. It is a simple way that can introduce almost anyone from anywhere to each television screen.

This ongoing and continually developing installation has travelled to museums all over the world and is breaking down cultural barriers to continually show our global culture more ways to see how we can work together to change things. He chooses not to focus on the ways in which we are different and the concepts that only cause friction and tension.

Tara Turley-Dean

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A hybrid cause towards intermedial activism

Guillermo Gomez-Peña’s work revolves around a multi-faceted mission to exorcize various –isms through an artistic palette which consists of music genres, theatre, literature, videos and especially radical activism. Gomez-Peña’s confrontational spoken art appeals to various types of people and does not limit his audience to a Latin American demographic, nor does it limit them to being a simple viewer. In works such as The Couple in the Cage (1993), Gomez-Peña collaborates with interdisciplinary artist Coco Fusco posing as an undiscovered Amerindian couple displayed in a cage for the public to consume. Ultimately, their video is built around the audiences’ responses and remarks, allowing the public to script the project. His manifested website, La Pocha Nostra, combines all aspects of his performance art in partnership with his team (a trans-disciplinary arts organization) as well to promote a ‘conceptual institute of hybrid art’.

Corina Pilay