The Fort Worth Modern is hosting the thirty year retrospective of Iranian-American photographer Shirin Neshat.

Untitled, 1995, from the Women of Allah series, ink on LE silver gelatin print, by Shirin Neshat, at the Fort Worth Modern, Fort Worth, Texas, United States (2021). Photo by Daniel Beauchamp.

★★★★☆

Visions of Iran

To be honest, I wasn’t exceptionally excited to see Shirin Neshat’s exhibition I Will Greet the Sun Again — documenting thirty years of the artist’s work — at the Fort Worth Modern. I’m not often impressed by photography exhibits in general. In my opinion, photography rarely captures the energy of any kind of other artistic medium. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the visit. This massive survey of Neshat’s work is a worthy exploration.

Neshat is an Iranian-born artist who emigrated to the United States. Despite this, Neshat doesn’t seem interested in interrogating the differences between the East and the West. Instead she focuses on the contradictions within her ancestral nation. She tackles such subjects as the religion of Islam, motherhood, the dichotomies between the sexes and their respective rights and privileges in the country of Iran.

Working in photography and videography, Neshat focuses on —mostly black and white — portraiture. By the end of my visit, the exhibition felt rather monotonous. Neshat’s most inventive works include ink painting on photographic prints. Such compositions are interesting in the way that Neshat combines imagery with Arabic text.

Neshat’s exhibition I Will Greet the Sun Again offers a tantalizing glimpse into a nation that is regularly regarded as an enemy of the United States. The Iran Nuclear Deal has been a frequent topic of headlines within the last few years, following U.S. withdrawal from the agreement prompted by former President Donald Trump.

As recently-elected President Joe Biden seeks to privatize U.S. operations in Afghanistan after twenty years of war, it is increasingly important to foster dialogues between the East and the West.

Up the stairs, at the start of the exhibition, visitors are first greeted by Whispers, the only work in Neshat’s Women of Allah series to include the image of a man. The faces of the man and woman are aligned perpendicular to one another, suggesting miscommunication.

The text written upon the man’s face is taken from short-lived female iconoclast Forugh Farrokhzad’s poem Na ashena, which translates from Arabic as “stranger” or “unfamiliar”.

The most haunting work in the exhibit is My Beloved, inspired by the concept of love. Neshat skillfully combines her most frequent themes — motherhood, religion, and violence — into one singular composition.

Neshat herself poses for the photograph. She holds her own young son in a protective posture and the two are draped in a traditional burial garment, the kafan. Love is both a promise and a threat. The effect is powerful, beautiful, and chilling.

Violence is a major theme of Neshat’s work, one she often combines with both religious and patriotic fervor. This subject is most explicit in Neshat’s series Martyrdom.

In The Book of Kings series, Neshat turns her attention to masculinity by combining imagery from the 10th century Shahnameh (The Book of Kings) by Ferdowsi and the photographs of contemporary Iranian men. The men are shirtless and dressed in black trousers, evoking the uniform of wrestlers.

According to the contemporary Iranian-American writer Azar Nafisi, the Shahnameh is “the golden thread that links one Persian to the other, connecting the past to the present.” Neshat suggests a heritage of violence connects the legacy of ancestral Persians and contemporary Iranians.

I found Neshat’s multi-channel video installations to be quite intriguing. In her 1999 work Rapture, she follows a crowd of women and a crowd of men. The juxtaposition pushes the viewer back and forth in an “allegorical duel.”

The final rooms of the exhibition were among the best. The walls of the last room — which holds the Land of Dreams series — is completely covered in portraits of Americans residing in New Mexico. Inscriptions are inspired by dreams recalled by the sitters.

The penultimate room features Our House Is on Fire, a series of portraits following the Arab Spring. Each of the sitters were profoundly affected by the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, with some who lost children during the protests. Neshat captures loss, devastation, and hopelessness.

Clearly, I left with a lasting impression of Neshat’s work; she did manage to sway my opinion on the emotionlessness of photography, and for that I am grateful. It is still unusual for women, and particularly Easterners, to be offered such large spaces in Western museums. This is a rare visit.

Shirin Neshat: I Will Greet the Sun Again is on view at the Fort Worth Modern February 28th to May 16th, 2021.

The Modern is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM, except for Fridays, during which the Museum is open until 8:00 PM. Admission price ranges from $10 to $16, with free entrance on Fridays and half-priced tickets on Sundays.