SINGULARITY I
Shirin Neshat : I am its Secret
10/04 to 02/05/2019
visible 14h – 00h daily
SINGULARITY: Secondary market works for sale, by artists featured in the most prestigious institutions, biennials and fairs.
SINGULARITY is an ongoing exhibition series of a single work on view at Gleichapel. Each work is offered for sale, and exclusively exhibited for a limited time. Work selection is based on the artists relevance and career trajectory. Eligible artists must have a gallery representation in Art Basel and have had participated in the most prestigious Biennales and/or institutional exhibitions.
SINGULARITY I, Shirin Neshat : I am its Secret, the first in the series, is a photograph with notable documentation in the press and literature, exhibition and auction history around the world.
I am its secret is a self portrait that was taken in 1993, when such self-portraiture had a wealth of meaning beyond the excessive self promoting “selfies” of this century. The artist’s face is nearly hidden inside an enigmatic black velvety cloth veil, while a rotating written poem in red and black ink mesmerises the viewer’s gaze as the artist’s driven eyes stare intensively out of the photographic plane.
An excerpt following about I am its Secret from The New York Times Artsbeat, 2010 (1) :
(…) The picture, made of ink on a resin-coated print, comes from Neshat’s series “Women of Allah,” which she made in the 1990s after her first trip to Iran after the revolution. Four symbolic elements help build the series’ melancholic beauty, Neshat explains in the book where we found this image: “the veil, the gun, the text and the gaze.” The missing gun renders this picture more timeless than most of the others, and something similar is at work in its text. “Although the Farsi words written on the works’ surfaces may seem like a decorative device,” Neshat writes, “they contribute significant meaning. The texts are amalgams of poems and prose works mostly by contemporary women writers in Iran. These writings embody sometimes diametrically opposing political and ideological views, from the entirely secular to fanatic Islamic slogans of martyrdom and self-sacrifice to poetic, sensual and even sexual meditations.”
Neshat made a lovely choice in her text for this image, which imbues it with layers of paradox and discovery; it’s by the remarkable pre-revolutionary Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-67), a rebel against many of the conventions symbolised by the veil. Here is the translation of the poem, “I Will Greet the Sun Again,” from Neshat’s book.
I will greet the sun again;
I will greet the streams which flowed in me;
I will greet the clouds which were
my lengthy thoughts;
I will greet the painful growth of poplars
Which pass through the dry seasons;
I will greet the flocks of crows
Which brought me, as presents,
The sweet smells of the fields at night;
I will greet my mother who lived in the mirror
And was the image of my old age;
And I will also greet the earth whose burning womb
Is filled with green seeds by the passion she has
For reproducing me.
I will come, I will come,
I will come with my hair,
As the continuation of the smells of the soil;
With my eyes, as the dense experiences of darkness,
Carrying the bushes I have picked in the woodlands
beyond the wall.
I will come, I will come,
I will come and the entrance will be filled with love;
And at the entrance I will greet again
those who are in love,
And also the girl who is still standing
At the entrance in diffusion of love.
-Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-67)
Shirin Neshat (Qazvin, Iran, 1957) is an important Iranian American artist, internationally recognised for her films, photographs and performances. She explores the nuances of power, gender and identity in the Islamic and Persian world—particularly in her native country of Iran, where she lived until 1975. Her elegant and exhaustive videos and films have won her a Silver Lion in 2009, at the Venice Film Festival for the feature-length film Women Without Men and she received a Golden Lion in 1999 for best international artist at the Venice Biennale. I am its Secret (1993) is from the series “Women of Allah,” which propelled Shirin Neshat’s career into international recognition. Represented by the legendary Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York, as well as several galleries in wider Europe, her works can be found in the collections of major museums notably Pompidou Center, Paris; MoMA and Guggenheim collections, New York; MCA, Chicago; The Broad, Los Angeles; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and many more.
Her upcoming fall exhibition at The Broad, Los Angeles, Shirin Neshat: I Will Greet the Sun Again, the title of which is taken from the poem by Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-67), is written on I am its Secret. This exhibition will feature 130 works by the artist, the largest survey to date.
(1) Coates, Steve. Shirin Neshat’s ‘I Am Its Secret.’ THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTSBEAT, May 17, 2010.
Shirin Neshat, I am its Secret (from Women of Allah series), 1993
c-print/fujicolor, signed, titled and dated on verso
49 x 33 cm (19 x 13 inches)
from the edition of 250, MoCA Los Angeles.
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