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Bahar Sabzevari, Untitled 2011. Acrylic on Canvas, 30 x 30 in / 76 x 76 cm
The Mask & The Mirror
Curated by Shirin Neshat
November 3 - December 21, 2011Mask and The Mirror, an exhibition of self-portraits curated by artist Shirin Neshat, will be on view at Leila Heller Gallery in Chelsea from November 3 through December 21, 2011. The exhibition will take place in the Gallery’s new space at 568 West 25th Street and will present photographs and paintings by 17 artists—some internationally iconic, others emerging and on view for the first time in New York—from the United States, the Middle East, Africa, and Pakistan. An illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition.
The Mask and The Mirror will include work by Marina Abramović, Matthew Barney, Paolo Canevari, Feridoun Ghaffari, Ramin Haerizadeh, Lyle Ashton Harris, Y.Z. Kami, Shahram Karimi, Robert Mapplethorpe, Youssef Nabil, Nicky Nodjoumi, Bahar Sabzevari, Cindy Sherman, Shahzia Sikander, Iké Udé, Van Leo, and Andy Warhol.
Among the highlights of the exhibition are a photograph by Matthew Barney, Drawing Restraint 13: Instrument of Surrender, 2006, with the artist in full military uniform flanked by soldiers, and an untitled color print by Cindy Sherman from 2000 in which she is wearing a yellow wig and outlandish clown makeup. Also included in the exhibition are photographs by Van Leo (1921¬-2002), whose Hollywood-inspired images of Cairo’s belle époque are considered unrivaled in the Arab world.
“As a Middle Eastern artist with a history of making self-portrait photographs, I have been interested in how the West has influenced non-Western cultures and our way of capturing identity and expression of self,” notes Shirin Neshat.
The works in The Mask and The Mirror fall into two categories. Some of them are self-portraits that mask identity while remaining autobiographical and functioning as a form of self-examination, exploring the artist’s personal emotional, sexual, and psychological angst. Other self-portraits serve as social commentary that mirrors pressing cultural, political and religious issues in the world the artist inhabits. In both forms, though, the artist learns to wear disguises, perform roles, and reflect society.
“I was particularly inspired by the parallels I found between the work of Egyptian photographer Van Leo and American artist Robert Mapplethorpe, as both artists photographed their bodies with similar sense of obsessions and results,” said Neshat.
Shirin Neshat was born in Iran. She is well known for her work in film, video, and photography, which has been shown at major museums nationally and internationally. Her film Women Without Men won the Silver Lion for best director at the 2009 Venice Film Festival. She lives and works in New York City.
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one of my favorites.
Here is a Georgia State Trooper in riot gear at a KKK protest in a north Georgia city back in the 80s. The Trooper is black. Standing in front of him and touching his shield is a curious little boy dressed in a Klan hood and robe. I have stared at this picture and wondered what must have been going through that Trooper’s mind. Before the Trooper is an innocent child who is being taught to hate him because of the color of his skin. The child doesn’t understand what he is being taught, and at this point he doesn’t seem to care. Like any other child his curiosity takes hold and he wants to explore this new thing that this man is holding probably because he can see his reflection in it and that’s a neat thing and he wants to check it out. In this picture I see innocence mixed with hate, the irony of a black man protecting the right of white people to assemble in protest against him, temperance in the face of ignorance, and hope that racism can be broken because this young boy may remember that a black man smiled at him once and he didn’t seem so bad after all.
Wow.
“…the political disenfranchisement associated with Jim Crow meant that all black men were placed in the position of being unable to protect the women they loved…”
Patricia Hill Collins in Black Sexual Politics
no words.
