This panel will bring together two distinct and influential artists to discuss how each, within the practices of video, photography and architecture, engages with audiences in order to provoke reflections on culture, politics and the lived environment. What role do artistic concepts have in communicating new experiences or ways to understand the world we live in?
Bio
Mariko Mori
Ms. Mariko Mori is an internationally acclaimed artist whose work has been acquired by museums and private collectors worldwide. Mori gained recognition for her interactive installation, WAVE UFO, which was included in the 2005 Venice Biennale. It was also featured in Oneness, a survey of Mori’s work that opened at the Groninger Museum, the Netherlands, then traveled to the Aros Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark, the Pinchuk Art Centre Ukraine, and the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, in Brasília, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil.
Ms. Mori’s monumental installations have been exhibited throughout the world, including Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Prada Foundation, Milan; The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, The Serpentine Gallery, London; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her works have been in collections at The Guggenheim Museum, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Prada Foundation, Milan; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Pinchuk Arts Centre, Kiev; The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
She has received various awards including the prestigious Menzioni d’Onore at the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997 and the 8th Annual Award as a promising Artist and Scholar in the Field of Contemporary Japanese Art in 2001 from Japan Cultural Arts Foundation.
Shirin Neshat
Although Shirin Neshat lives and works in the United States, her artwork explores issues of her native Islamic society, especially the position of women. She uses the specifics of her background culture to create works that communicate universal ideas about loss, meaning, and memory. Neshat’s most recent work has consisted of films in the form of dual video projections. By projecting images on opposing walls, the viewer, who stands in the middle of this work, is engaged in a visual conversation, physically experiencing both screens, thus eliminating the passivity permitted by traditional cinema situations. Neshat’s new film, Soliloquy, which she directed and acted in and is being premiered at the Carnegie International, tells the story of a Muslim woman who is in constant negotiation between East and West, between tradition and present-day pressures.
Shirin Neshat’s photographs and videos have been included in many international exhibitions, including Jurassic Technologies Revenant, the 10th Biennale of Sydney (1996); 5th International Istanbul Biennale and Trade Routes: History and Geography. 2nd Johannesburg Biennale (1997); Unfinished History, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota (1998) and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1999); and Exploding Cinema, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Heavenly Figure, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Zeitwenden, Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, in cooperation with Kunstmuseum, Bonn, SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico, La Ville, le Jardin, la Mémoire-1998, 2000, 1999, Académie de France, Villa Medici, Rome, and 48th Venice Biennale (1999). In 1996 Neshat's work was presented by Creative Time for Anchorage, Brooklyn Bridge, New York. Solo exhibitions of Neshat's work have been presented at Franklin Furnace, New York (1993); Centre d'art contemporain, Fribourg (1996); Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana (1997); Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, New York, and Tate Gallery of Modern Art at St. Mary-le-Bow Church, Cheapside, London (1998); and The Art Institute of Chicago (1999). In 1996 Neshat was awarded a grant from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation.
