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Art News:
For Immediate
Release
November 23,
2010
Contact
Katie Kazan, Director of Public Information
Madison Museum of
Contemporary
Art
608.257.0158 x 237 or
katie@mmoca.org
Jane Simon, Curator of
Exhibitions
608.257.0158 ext 226 or
jane@mmoca.org
Shirin Neshat:
Rapture
At the Madison Museum of Contemporary
Art
December 11, 2010–March 6,
2011
MADISON, WI–The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art will present
Shirin
Neshat: Rapture in the museum’s State Street Gallery from
December
11, 2010, through March 6, 2011. Neshat, who was born in Iran and
moved
to the United States in 1978, at the age of 17, is highly acclaimed
for
her films, photographs, and videos that explore the experience of
women
living in contemporary and traditional Islamic cultures. Neshat’s
seminal
video installation Rapture (1999) is on loan to MMoCA
from
The Art Institute of
Chicago.
Rapture, one of Neshat’s early works, consists of two
projections
shown on opposing gallery walls. One projection shows a group of
men
dressed alike in Western-style white shirts and black pants. The
other
shows a group of women wearing traditional Iranian dress, including
the
chador, which covers their heads and most of their bodies, and
in
some cases, the niquab, a face covering. Despite these
garments,
the viewer is able to decipher individual features and expressions.
The installation, which is 13 minutes long and shown in continuous
loops,
shows elegiac and meditative scenes of the two groups. As the
women
traverse landscapes of sand and stone, the men navigate the
stone
architecture of an ancient city. As the women cry out--whether
in
celebration or anger, it’s unclear--the men unroll Persian prayer
rugs
and quarrel. In the final scene, the women gather on a beach, where
they
maneuver a small boat into the crashing waves. As their bare feet
break
the sand surface, the hems of their chadors become wet with salt
water.
Ultimately, six women remain in the boat as it drifts out to
the
sea.
Although art historians reference Neshat’s upbringing in Iran and
her
experiences in the United States as a way to shed light on her body
of
work, Neshat herself is neither dogmatic nor clear about her
intentions.
“From the beginning,” she said in a 1999 interview with art critic
Arthur
Danto, “I made a decision that this work was not going to be about me
or
my opinions on the subject, and that my position was going to be
no
position. I then put myself in a place of only asking questions but
never
answering
them.”
Writing in The New Yorker about Neshat’s two-channel
projections,
Peter Schjeldahl wrote, “Neshat's elegant, two-screen meditations on
the
culture of the chador in Islamic Iran emit an icy heat of
suppressed
passions; they are among the first undoubtable masterpieces of
video
installation.”
MMoCA will mark the opening of Shirin Neshat: Rapture with
two
related events in an MMoCA Nights celebration from 6:30 to 9 pm
on
Friday, December 10. At 6:30 pm in the museum’s lecture hall, Michael
Jay
McClure will discuss Rapture’s sculptural presence in a
talk
titled “Being in Common: Shirin Neshat and the Dimensions of
Film.”
Following the talk, Neshat’s first feature-length film, Women
Without
Men (2009), will be screened in the lecture hall as part of
the
museum’s Spotlight Cinema series. The evening, which is free to
MMoCA
members and $5 for the general public, will also feature
seasonal
refreshments and live music from acclaimed jazz violinist
Randal
Harrison.
SPONSORS
Generous funding for Shirin Neshat: Rapture has been provided
by
Gabriele Haberland and Willy Haeberli; Gina Carter; Linda
Bochert;
Barbara Swan; Linda Clifford; Brenda Furlow; Kristine Euclide;
Jane
Hamblen; JoAnne Kloppenburg; Ann Ustad Smith; Patricia Struck;
Mary
Turke; Teresa Welch; Claudia Sanders; Maryann Sumi; Sarah Zylstra;
a
grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State
of
Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts; and the Art League
of
the Madison Museum of Contemporary
Art.
The MMoCA Nights opening of Shirin Neshat: Rapture is sponsored
by
Newcomb Construction Company, with media support provided
by
Isthmus/TheDailyPage.com.
______________________
Hours at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art are
Tuesday-Thursday
(noon-5 pm); Friday (noon-8 pm); Saturday (10 am-8 pm); and
Sunday
(noon-5
pm).
Admission to exhibitions at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
is
free of charge. MMoCA is an independent museum supported
through
memberships and through generous contributions and grants
from
individuals, corporations, agencies, and foundations. Important
support
is also generated through auxiliary group programs; special
events;
rental of the museum’s lobby, lecture hall, and rooftop garden; and
sales
through the Museum
Store.
Katie
Kazan
Director of Public
Information
Madison Museum of Contemporary
Art
227 State
Street
Madison, WI
53703
608.257.0158 x
237
Sign up for MMoCA email
updates
at
www.mmoca.org.
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