Shirin NESHAT Iranian, b. 1957
I Am Its Secret (from Women of Allah series) , 1993
Chromogenic print
49.4 x 33.5 cm
Edition 53 of 250
Further images
Shirin NESHAT (b. 1957) is an Iranian-born visual artist and filmmaker whose work explores the complex intersections of gender, religion, and power in Islamic societies. She moved to the United...
Shirin NESHAT (b. 1957) is an Iranian-born visual artist and filmmaker whose work explores the complex intersections of gender, religion, and power in Islamic societies. She moved to the United States in 1974 to study at the University of California, Berkeley, and was unable to return to Iran for nearly two decades following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Neshat’s celebrated photographic series, Women of Allah (1993–97), explores notions of femininity in relation to Islamic fundamentalism and militancy in her home country, using symbols associated with Western representations of the Muslim world: the veil, the gun, the text, and the gaze. Through these images, she positions the female body as a site of both resistance and devotion, confronting cultural and political assumptions about identity and power.
She has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, most recently 'Born of Fire' at the Parrish Art Museum, New York (2025); 'Body of Evidence' at the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan (2025), and 'I Will Greet the Sun Again' at the Broad, Los Angeles (2019–20). Her work is also in the permanent collections of major museums including the MoMA, New York; Tate Modern, London; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York & Bilbao; The Art Institute of Chicago; the MET, New York; the SFMOMA; Centre Pompidou, Paris; among many others.
Neshat’s celebrated photographic series, Women of Allah (1993–97), explores notions of femininity in relation to Islamic fundamentalism and militancy in her home country, using symbols associated with Western representations of the Muslim world: the veil, the gun, the text, and the gaze. Through these images, she positions the female body as a site of both resistance and devotion, confronting cultural and political assumptions about identity and power.
She has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, most recently 'Born of Fire' at the Parrish Art Museum, New York (2025); 'Body of Evidence' at the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan (2025), and 'I Will Greet the Sun Again' at the Broad, Los Angeles (2019–20). Her work is also in the permanent collections of major museums including the MoMA, New York; Tate Modern, London; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York & Bilbao; The Art Institute of Chicago; the MET, New York; the SFMOMA; Centre Pompidou, Paris; among many others.
Exhibitions
The Resistance of Pen & Paper, Richard Saltoun Gallery London, 2023Vancouver, Artspeak Gallery, Shirin Neshat: Women of Allah, 1997, pp. 15-16 and 27 (another from the edition exhibited; another from the editionillustrated in colour on the front cover and p.17).
Oslo, Tromsø kunstforening, Shirin, 1999, p. 71 (another from the edition exhibited; another from the edition illustrated in colour on the front cover and p. 10). This exhibition later travelled to Høvikodden, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter; Bergen, Bergen kunstforening and Stockholm, Tensta Konsthall.
Washington, Hirshhorn Museum, Shirin Neshat: Facing History, 2015, pp. 76 and 235 (another version illustrated in colour, p. 77).
Los Angeles, The Broad, Shirin Neshat: I Will Greet the Sun Again, 2019-2020, p. 232 (another version illustrated in colour, p. 39).
Literature
A. Danto and M. Abramović, Shirin Neshat, New York 2010, p. 256 (another from the edition illustrated in colour, p. 25; detail illustrated, pp. 40-41).H. Ventura, Shirin Neshat: Frauen in Gesellschaft, Berlin 2017, p. 37 (another from the edition illustrated in colour).
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