It goes without saying that I am a die-hard fan of Shirin Neshat’s work.  But after interviewing her for an article in the Huffington Post, I was even more impressed by her.

After garnering much international acclaim for her photography and her video art, she took herself and her art into new territory by directing a feature film for the first time.

The film, Women without Men, is a visually arresting film with great political undertones.

It is uncanny to see that the demonstration scenes depicted in the 1953 CIA backed coup d’etat bears strong resemblance to the demonstration clips that come out of present day Iran.  In an interview, Shirin, a Mousavi supporter, stated, “People have changed. The dictators have changed in form and shape and ideology. But the struggle continues today.”

On September 12^th, Shirin Neshat, wearing her green Mousavi bracelet, held her Silver Lion Award in the closing ceremony of the Venice Film Festival.  We should all be so proud of this great artist and trailblazer. I hope others get to view this movie soon.

When I visited New York a few weeks back, I was pleasantly surprised by the city’s great interest and support of Iranian Art.  The Metropolitan Museum’s collection of Persian Art is one of the largest in the western world and just recently it was announced that a new gallery will be dedicated to showcase some of the Iranian masterpieces in the collection.  The Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Fund has made this possible and I can’t wait to see the legendary 15^th century Book of Kings (Shahnameh) on view when the gallery opens in 2011.

I also went to the Chelsea Art Museum to view the exhibition—Iran Inside and Out.  This exhibition presented over 50 artists, half of whom live in Iran and half of whom live in a diaspora.  Of course I found this to be a timely exhibition not only because of the new wave of interest in Iran Art but also because it provides the viewer the ability to formulate his or her own views on what makes up the people of Iran.  What is most interesting is that the “diaspora artists” drew more references to their cultural heritage than those who live in Iran.  The work of the artists living in Iran seemed to be less culture-specific and what many people may say “Middle Eastern” in theme.  Indeed this exhibition gave me great insight into the aspirations and hopes of these artists, who used their art as a means of self-expression.