Shirin Neshat : "Women of Allah"

The pictures are agressive, troubling and compelling, but also silent, fragile, harmonious and illuminating. What do we see? A repertory of images combining the Middle East and its traditions, the condition of women and its constraints, religion and fundamentalism, the concept of the martyr and firearms. But what appears on the surface to be the subject matter is in fact just the starting point, these pictures say something else. All of Shirin Neshat's work is based on an interplay of contrasts, both in terms of its external form and at the level of its intrinsic meaning. To show otherness - the Iranian woman, her physical presence and her place in a cultural context that is unfamiliar to us - she creates photographic works that are deliberately, shockingly intense. Perhaps this is because only brutal confrontation can help us to see rather than just look.