Sayed
Sayed, 2013, Digital Photographic Print
Shirin Neshat (Iranian, born 1957)
#2015.0004.0002
This powerful photographic portrait is part of Shirin Neshat's 2013 series Our House is on Fire. In this series, the artist invited several Egyptian individuals to share their stories before her camera. Depicting her subjects up close and with a notable directness, Neshat captures the intensity of each individual’s gaze, creating a poignant connection between the subject and viewer. Neshat then overlays the images with a nearly indecipherable veil of text, inscribing calligraphy across the creases and folds of the subjects’ faces, thereby mirroring the way in which national calamity has become embedded in and inseparable from their personal histories. Taken as a whole this body of work compels the viewer to acknowledge the toll of political and social upheaval that results when people deny humanity to those whom they perceive as the “other.” 
Sayed, detail
(click image to expand)
Shirin Neshat is an internationally-renowned Iranian-born artist and filmmaker who lives in New York City.
Gift of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
