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An Evening with Shirin Neshat: Women Without Men By: Rosita Bagheri Fig.2 Three Studies for a Crucifixion, March 1962 In collaboration with Persian Cultural Center, on June 18, 2009, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego screened “Women Without Men,” the first featurelength film in progress by celebrated Iranian visual artist/filmmaker Shirin Neshat. Neshat was personally present at the screening which included a question and answer session. Neshat, a leading Iranian artist, rose to prominence following her work on the gender divide in Islam. Among her well-known works are a photographic series entitled “Women of Allah” (1993-1997), along with a trilogy of award-winning, dual-screen, video installations – “Turbulent,” “Rapture” and “Fervor.” Fig. 3 Pablo Picasso, Seated Female Nude, 1909/10, Fig. 4 Study from the Human Body motion. Bacon broke free of the cage of reality by tearing open the curtain of time. A good example of Bacon’s angle of realism is Study from the Human Body. (Fig.4) One can feel the pain in the paint. Bacon is a realist, an expressionist and a modernist in the manner of Van Gogh. He is the painter of pain, power, and the paradox of modern life. If you happen to be in New York, pay a visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art where a retrospective exhibition of Francis Bacon’s works is on view until August 16, 2009. This is the first major exhibition of Bacon’s work in New York in twenty years. Notes: Francis Bacon the Violence of the Real, ed. Zweite and Muller, Thames & Hudson, 2006 Article by Peter Burger (pp. 29-37) To read more on Francis Bacon: Figurabile: Francis Bacon / David Sylvester, 1993 Francis Bacon and the tradition of art / edited by Wilfried Seipel, Barbara Steffen, Christoph Vital, 2003 Set in Tehran in 1953, Women Without Men is Neshat’s screen adaptation of exiled Iranian writer, Shahrnush Parsipur’s, magic realist novel of the same title. The film chronicles the experiences of five women during the U.S. and British-backed overthrow of the country’s democratically elected government in 1953. Mixing magic, tragedy, history and politics, Neshat has spent the last six years adapting the novel into a film, with complex, interwoven tales of women from very different parts of society in the 1950s--upper class and poor, observant and secular--who exist as real characters but are also capable of becoming ghosts, and even trees, that grow and blossom with the seasons. Unfolding in an atmosphere of magic realism, the characters struggle for freedom and survival in a regime of strict rules, prohibitions, and guilt related to the social behavior and the personal self-determination of women trapped and seeking personal freedom in the garden. The Garden is the theme where these characters go back & forth into which is magic and then some realism.. Taking it out loses the main theme of the book & the film Shirin Neshat is one of the most innovative, thoughtprovoking and exciting contemporary artists of our time. She considers herself a “passionate inquirer” who “prefers raising questions as opposed to answering them.” Over 350 people attended the preview and stayed through a vibrant Q and A session. No. 122/ July-August 2009 19
Reviewed by Aria Fani Iranian Poetry Today A snapshot of “post-modern” Iranian poetry The voices of women writers have been absent from Persian literature, perhaps until recently. Is literature the only realm in which women could not nurture their creative talents? Women are absent from the history of Iran, absent from many figures of Persepolis, absent in the religious hierarchy of Islam, and invisible on the political scene. This analysis does not undertake the studying of women’s long silence, and the repression that denied them any access to power in the literary or social arena. Nonetheless, in order to understand the voices of contemporary women writers, it is essential to de-construct a culture that has often categorized all that is feminine as “vulgar” and “private.” In the Persian culture, women’s voices are veiled, entrapped in the binary opposition of private/public spheres. This seems to have been rooted in all aspects of life, moral, sexual, social, and political. “In a veiled society, walls surround houses. Religious Taqiyeh [deliberate dissimulation] protects faith. Ta’arof [ritualistic mode of discourse] disguises some thoughts and emotions and plunges both parties, the addressee and addresser, into a kind of factual suspense. Feelings become disjointed in Zaheri [external] and Biruni [internal] spheres,” Farzaneh Milani, a professor of Persian literature writes in “Veils and Words.” In a society that tends to separate the private sphere from that of public, hierarchies are created. The world related to women is considered “trivial,” “personal,” and “indoor,” while the men’s world of money and politics [outdoor] is highly privileged. Thus, it is not hard to imagine how little the literary arena would have been invested in the voices of women writers. In spite of repression, women’s voices have emerged against all the odds. Parvin E’tessami, Forugh Farrokhzad, Simin Daneshvar, and Simin Behbahani have all broken the silence of their times, overcoming some of the cultural constraints placed on the female identity. Partow Nooriala’s poem, “Four Springs” fits well within these rebellious female voices. In “Four Springs,” Nooriala speaks candidly of women, all stages of her life, and puts her fresh perspective on the women’s body and voice. Her story of womanhood is no longer that of silence and passivity, no longer veiled. Having broken many cultural taboos, Nooriala further expresses her personal autonomy and self-hood through her poetry. In “Puberty,” the first poem of “Four Springs,” Nooriala recalls the innocent days of childhood, and celebrates the newfound energy of a little girl that “sets out in the breeze,” with her “disheveled hair [and] bare feet.” Nooriala brilliantly captures the rapid and mysterious transition during which a girl arrives at womanhood. “Puberty” depicts the innocent gaze of a “twelve-year-old,” who is given a complete sense of her identity through “dolls, jump ropes and cardboard house.” She is clueless about her childhood identity, for “the lost games linger[ing] in afternoon haze,” are abruptly disrupted by a “drop of blood.” There is a feeling of fear and anxiety that marks the transition between childhood and puberty. But is the little girl prepared to face the world as a woman? “Bashful, clinging to childhood, she bathes her breast-sprouts.” In the second stage, “Love,” she is suddenly awakened to a different sensual being, to her newfound desires, driven by the “thumpings of her heart.” The limpid language of “Love” celebrates the high emotions of the sixteen-year-old, storming through her life. In “Labor,” she is compelled to submit to all the pain that her “creature” assigns to her. Her body is torn by pressure and pain; and “in one instant” she gives birth, which marks her eighteenth year. “Labor” is not depicted as vulgar or distasteful, but rather as a new beginning. Somewhere in the midst of pain and pressure, the woman’s body and mind profoundly mature and blossom to a new age, motherhood. The last stage is “Menopause.” Although time for her reproductive fertility has come to an end, her mind is far from reaching its limits. Menopause profoundly de-stabilizes her; yet she embraces another coming of age, marked by wisdom. Menopause will not stop her growth, a woman who has loved and given birth. Her aging is beautiful, and her coming-of-age knowledge is celebrated. Menopause inevitably brings its own restrictions, pains, and frustrations, but only for her to look back and see that her “old shrub of heart had never blossomed so red before,” even in her youth. She stands before high horizons, about to transgress new boundaries. There is a profound sense of age and movement in Nooriala’s “Four Springs,” which puts a unique and fresh perspective on all the stages of a woman’s life, each bringing its own growth and wisdom. 20 No. 122/ July-August 2009
Page 1 and 2: 122 July-August 2009 Vol. XIX No. 1
Page 3 and 4: Continued from Page 5 THE GREEN HOR
Page 5 and 6: Editorial Be Careful What You Wish
Page 7 and 8: Persian Cultural Center Persian Cul
Page 9 and 10: Laughter and Self-Reflection for Fo
Page 11 and 12: EDUCATION by Sheiveh Jones I recent
Page 13 and 14: 16 No. 122/ July-August 2009
Page 15: ROJA NAJAFI Through Roja’s Lens F
Page 19 and 20: SUMMER READING—PEYK PICKS By Shag

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