The Peggy Society hosted an intimate evening with Shirin Neshat’s studio manager and photographer Giulia Theodoli, and curator Jess Rolls, featuring a special film screening and in-conversation with Iranian visual artist Shirin Neshat. The evening focused on Neshat’s latest video trilogy Dreamers (2014-2016) and Theodoli’s behind-the-scenes photography of Neshat’s latest feature-length film Looking for Oum Kulthum (2017).
More about the film program and presenters, plus event photographs below.
Venue: CULTURUNNERS
144 Duane Street (studio), NY
Tuesday, May 29th
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Shirin Neshat, Dreamers (2013-2016)
The trilogy Dreamers is comprised of three video installations: Illusions and Mirrors (2013), Roja (2016), and Sarah (2016). Each video revolves around single female protagonists whose emotional and psychological narratives remain on the border of dream and reality; madness and sanity; and consciousness and sub-consciousness as they each face their own distinct inner anxieties. Based on aspects of the artist’s own recurring dreams, memories and sense of longings, these beautifully shot, black and white films will be screened together for the first time in New York.
Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari, Looking for Oum Kulthum (2017)
Conceived as a “film within a film”, Shirin Neshat’s Looking for Oum Kulthum (2017) renders the journey of an Iranian woman, who is making a film about the most famous singer of the Arab world; the Egyptian singer, Oum Kulthum, often referred to as "the Queen of the Arabs," due to her ability of culturally uniting a diverse group of nations. Looking for Oum Kulthum follows Neshat’s feature-film directorial debut, Women Without Men (2009), which received the Silver Lion Award for Best Director at the 66th Venice International Film Festival.
About Shirin Neshat
Shirin Neshat is an Iranian artist and filmmaker living in New York. Born in Qazvin, Iran, Neshat moved to the United States in 1974, where she studied art. The historic rupture of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran changed her life and creative practice. She gained international prominence in 1995 with her iconic series of black and white, calligraphy-overlaid photographs, Women of Allah, which explored the question of gender in relation to Islamic Fundamentalism and militancy. Her subsequent video works departed from overtly political content or critique in favor of more poetic imagery and complex human narratives. She broke new ground, winning the Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale (1999), for her video installation, Turbulent, and the Silver Lion at the International Venice Film Festival (2009) for her first feature film, Women Without Men. Solo exhibitions include shows at the Museo Correr in Venice, Italy, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., Serpentine Gallery, London, Hamburger Banhof, Berlin.
About Giulia Theodoli
Acting in the dual roles of personal assistant and photo-documenter for Shirin Neshat, Giulia Theodoli, presents a body of photographs taken on the film sets of Looking For Oum Kulthum in Casablanca, Morocco (2017), Dreamers, New York, USA (2016) and Aida, Salzburg, Austria (2017). Born in Rome, Italy, Giulia Theodoli has studied art history at Columbia University and has worked in Shirin Neshat's studio since 2010 overseeing major exhibitions, public art and performances including Aida, Salzburg Festival, Austria (2017), Passage Through The World, Bari and Naples, Italy (2015, 2016) and Shirin Neshat: Facing History, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. (2015). As a photographer, Theodoli has collaborated with curator Jess Rolls on public art projects including Open Studio, Central Park, New York (2017) and Theaster Gates' Sanctum, Bristol (2015).
About Jess Rolls
Jess Rolls is an independent multidisciplinary arts curator and producer based in New York, working with artist-run spaces and communities across the city. Her interest in the work of Shirin Neshat stems from collaboration with Giulia Theodoli and Fiamma Arditi, Director of Senza Frontiere - Without Borders Film Festival (Rome, Italy), to which Jess Rolls and Shirin Neshat each contributed (2010-2013). Highlights of Jess' curatorial career in the UK and US include solo exhibitions and public art works with Maria Thereza Alves, Jennifer Tee, Shilpa Gupta and Cosima von Bonin (2011-2016). Recent works include collaborations with Case Studios and Flux Factory, 7common, Queens (2017-2018); The Art Students League of New York, Manhattan (2016-2018); Concourse House, Home for Women and Their Children, Bronx (2017); and Theaster Gates, Sanctum, Bristol, UK (2015).
About CULTURUNNERS
Developed in collaboration with an international network of artists and journalists from the Middle East, Europe and the United States, CULTURUNNERS is an independent model of cultural exchange and production; one which empowers and mobilizes international artists to tell stories and create art across physical and psychological borders. Learn more at www.culturunners.com
