Shirin Neshat, Gizbasti, from The Home of My
Eyes series, 2015, Silver gelatin print and ink, 152.4 x 101.6 cm. (60 x 40 in.), Copyright Shirin Neshat, Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels
To celebrate the opening of YARAT’s Contemporary Art Centre in Baku, YARAT will be collaborating with Iranian born artist Shirin Neshat and curator Dina Nasser Khadivi, to deliver an outstanding display of photography and video installations.
On 24th March, 2015, to celebrate the opening of YARAT’s Contemporary Art Centre in Baku, YARAT will be collaborating with Iranian born artist Shirin Neshat and curator Dina Nasser Khadivi, to deliver an outstanding display of photography and video installations, in an exhibition titled The Home of my Eyes. Primarily focusing on Neshat’s portraiture series captured during her trip to Azerbaijan, Neshat’s seminal video installation Soliloquy (1999) and Passage (2001) are expected to make an appearance and will also be accompanied by an exhibition from YARAT’s permanent collection.
Neshat’s works engage with the social, cultural and religious differences that code our societies and draws upon the often-conflicting views that they bring together using visual juxtapositions of varying opposites.
With this in mind, during a trip to Azerbaijan in 2014, Neshat set off on a visual journey into the different communities and cultural identities of Persia. The result was a beautifully orchestrated, monumental installation of photographs, overlaid with written word that captured the different identities and beliefs of the Azerbaijani people.
The Home of My Eyes presents us with a narrative of cultural identities that will stretch across two of the gallery’s 11 metre high walls– a former soviet-era naval building and will celebrate the wonderful tapestry of Persian identities, tradition and contemporary values.
Neshat explains, ‘This series combines 55 portraits of men and women from different generations to create a tapestry of human faces which pays tribute to the rich cultural history of Azerbaijan and its diversity’.
YARAT Contemporary Art Centre, Baku, Azerbaijan 24 March – 23 June, 2015