Now showing: David LaChapelle’s American Jesus…

In 2006, famed photographer and director David LaChapelle made a conscious break from his successful fashion and celebrity career to focus instead on fine art pursuits. Since that time, LaChapelle’s photographic work has maintained the fabulously dramatic, evocative nature we’ve come to expect from him over the years, now elevated by more complex subject matters. Consistently incorporating references as varied as art history, street art and pop culture, LaChapelle’s new work addresses concepts such as consumerism and cultural hierarchies.

Now, for his first New York solo show since 2008, LaChapelle‘s brings three dramatic series to the Paul Kasmin Gallery: American Jesus, Thy Kingdom Come and The Rape of Africa (images below). American Jesus – a series began over a decade ago – includes three large-scale photos depicting Michael Jackson as a modern day, Biblical martyr (from LaChapelle’s final photo shoot with Jackson). In Thy Kingdom Come, LaChapelle considers the relationships between greed and corruption amongst the religious establishment.

And The Rape of Africa - perhaps LaChapelle’s most famous work of recent years – makes its New York debut this month as well. Inspired by Sandro Botticelli’s Venus & Mars (1484), the well-known allegorical work depicts the poised and beautiful Venus, goddess of love, having tamed and diffused Mars, the vengeful god of war, who soundly sleeps, while small cherub figures play with Mars’ instruments of warfare.

In LaChapelle’s interpretation, he subverts the meaning of the original work by proposing a black Venus (Naomi Campbell), striking in her beauty, yet completely powerless to both her treatment as property and to the destruction of her land through mining and war depicted in the background. LaChapelle’s Mars is not sleeping as much as satiated by his own victories, sitting on top of his plunder gained by conquests. The contemporary allegory is layered with imagery, as seen in the jarring combination of young children with deadly weapons. For the exhibit, the photograph is presented alongside studies for the work, illuminating LaChapelle’s background in the traditional medium of drawing and watercolor.

David LaChapelle’s work has been exhibited internationally at museums and institutions including the Museo de las Artes, Guadalajara; the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, Mexico City; the MOCA, Taipei; the Tel Aviv Museum of Art; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); The National Portrait Gallery, London; The Helmut Newton Foundation, Berlin; The Brandhorst Museum, Munich; and the Kunsthaus Wien, Vienna.

American Jesus runs through September 18, 2010.

And to learn more, check out my recent interview with LaChapelle for Dazed & Confused here.

*above: American Jesus

*above: Sketch for The Rape of Africa. LaChapelle’s photographs typically begin with a series of compositional graphite drawings, collages, watercolors, and mixed media sketches—a little known facet of his artistic process.

*above: The Rape of Africa

*All images copyright David LaChapelle and courtesy of Fred Torres Collaborations.

Asia Society Presents
“Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya”
Now through August 15, 2010
-By Matt Mulholland

Since the first recorded expedition to reach the summit of Everest in 1921, less than 3,000 individuals have reached the apex of the world’s highest peak. David Breashears has been to the top of Everest and back five times. During those five ascensions, spanning 1981 through 2004 , the world renown mountaineer and documentarian noticed much warmer temperatures and thinning ice at high altitudes.

Three years after his last ascent, Breashears was approached by Frontline producer Martin Smith. Smith was producing a special on global warming, and was in search of photographs demonstrating the effects of global warming on the Himalayas, the home of the fourteen highest peaks on earth. Breashears knew of an 80-year old photo taken by George Mallory, the leader of the first Everest expedition.

Motivated by his firsthand exposure to climate change on Everest, Breashears decided to reproduce Mallory’s photo, shooting exactly where Mallory had 80 years before. The difference between the two images shocked the veteran alpinist, and inspired his photographic call to arms: the “Glacier Research Imaging Project” (GRIP). The fruit of GRIP is a series of startling images, “Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya,” now showing at New York City’s Asia Society.

For this dramatic series of juxtapositions, Breashears revisited the sites seen in photos by respected mountain photographers taken over the last century. Breashears has precisely recaptured images produced decades earlier, demonstrating the dramatic impact global warming has had on these areas. Notably, Breashears’ photos are not only demonstrative of substantial change, they are beautifully composed.

There are also three videos – two poignantly narrated pieces and one that takes the viewer on a virtual tour of where the Himalayas are located. These videos are a must-see if the viewer wishes to fully understand the magnitude of the change illustrated in the photographs. What might appear simply as a small, newly exposed rock face, for example, is actually the result of a 400-foot wall of snow and ice melting away. The scope is impossible to determine simply from staring at the images; thus the Asia Society provides illustrations to establish the colossal scale.

Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, spells out the dire meaning behind the melting glacial ice:

“Many of the Greater Himalaya’s glaciers are in China, and the rivers that flow out these mountains and from these frozen reservoirs will help determine the fates of people from Afghanistan to the North China Plain. What the world chooses to do about climate change, will determine the fates of these glaciers and these peoples.”

The melt from these glaciers, the world’s largest sub-polar ice reserves, supply critical water flow to the Ganges, Mekong, Yangtze, Yellow, Brahmaputra and several other rivers. Hundreds of millions of people depend on these rivers to live. At this current melt rate, many of the Himalayan glaciers will be severely depleted in less than fifty years. Lonnie Thompson, paleoclimatologist and Distinguished University Professor in the School of Earth Sciences at The Ohio State University states:

“The glacier is a wonderful archive and you can take it to any goverment, you can take it the U.S. Senate; no one yet has come up with a political agenda the glacier might have to be behaving like it is, except the climate of the planet is changing.”

David Breashears has witnessed a harrowing change in these mountains and succeeded in illustrating the destruction caused by climate change in his dramatic comparisons. With “Rivers of Ice,” he has demonstrated the irreversible loss of hundreds of feet of ice. Breashears has been to the top and back, and guided others to the pinnacle of the world. But the greatest endeavor for Breashears remains – convincing people to do something about climate change.

Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya
Now through August 15, 2010 at Asia Society Museum
725 Park Avenue (at 70th Street), New York, NY

Story and photos by Matt Mulholland.

Photographer Bill Diodato‘s first monograph, “C/O Ward 81,” is a hauntingly beautiful photographic tribute to the demise of The Oregon State Mental Asylum’s Ward 81. Opened in the late 1800s, Ward 81 was established to provide women with psychiatric needs help and isolation. The Salem-based asylum was also the famous setting for the 1976 movie, “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.”

As Diodato writes in the book’s introduction, “Ward 81 is gone, and metaphorically so are the stereotypes associated with women who are afflicted with mental illness. My intention in publishing these images is to present the physical crumbling and decaying cells, which represent the end of old, corrupt, poorly-run asylums and bring about a sense of closure for the women of Ward 81.”

During 2005, when the entire site was being redeveloped, the Oregon State Legislature authorized Diodato to photograph – and thus document – the cremated remains of some 3500 deceased patients of the “Asylum” which, in one final act of inhumanity, had been cremated buried and exhumed. During this very moving project, Warden Marvin Fickle also granted Diodato access to the infamous closed-off Ward 81. Knowing that he’d be the last person to document the ward, Diodato felt a sense of responsibility to remember the women who inhabited this extraordinary place.

Famed photographer Mary Ellen Mark, who herself spent more than six weeks living with and photographing a woman’s ward at the same hospital in 1976, penned the book’s forward. In it, she writes:

“It’s painful for me to look at these pictures. They evoke feelings of life and death. I can hear the sounds of women running through hallways and someone shouting, ‘Meds, meds, come and get your meds.’ I can hear the crying of a woman being locked down in restraints. I can hear the music of the jukebox at the once-a-week dance with the women of Ward 81. Bill’s book brings me back to the haunted cell in which I slept in a deserted ward right next to Ward 81. I swear I heard people walking above me all night. Bill’s images confirm the feeling that I always had—that Ward 81 was and still is inhabited by many ghosts.”

There is immense sadness in Diodato’s series to be sure – undeniably, this crumbling space witnessed unthinkable pain and desperation. But there are also surprising elements that suggest the possibility of joy. Faded specimens of patients’ artwork and scabbing, once brightly colored paint on the walls can, at times, evoke an unanticipated and bittersweet sense of lost home.

In Diodato’s words: “…. Entering Ward 81, I found each room vibrated with pastel colors, some walls even adorned with curiously upbeat art from the patients. All this beauty was contrasted with a dense chalky air, earthy odor and constant crackling of debris beneath my feet….In the end, I can’t say where exactly the many sleepless nights I spent pondering what happened to the women of Ward 81 have taken me. I simply do not know. If, by chance, it helps even just one woman and her family, I rest my head with a renewed sense of hope.”

“Care Of Ward 81″ is the first of two limited-edition Diodato books focusing on “the demise of institutional services.” The second is slated for a 2011 release.

“Care of Ward 81″ is available in a first edition of 1,000 copies (200 are still available for $50); in a signed, numbered and slipcased edition of 100 with both the book and the slipcase bound in Japanese Saifu cloth ($250), and as a deluxe edition of 50, numbered and signed by Bill Diodato and Mary Ellen Mark, slipcase bound in Japanese Saifu Cloth, which comes with a print. The deluxe edition print of 50 included with the Deluxe Edition is a pigment print on the archival Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta paper. This image is printed with the finest archival inks available on the market today. Each print is signed and numbered by the artist. ($500) To purchase, click here

To learn more about Bill Diodato, visit his blog or billdiodato.com.
Diodato is represented by Marge Casey + Associates: 212-929-3757; info@margecasey.com

Care of Ward 81
Photographs and text by Bill Diodato.
Foreword by Mary Ellen Mark.
Golden Section Publishing, 2010.
64 pp., 46 color and black & white illustrations., 10×6½”.

*All images courtesy of Bill Diodato.

Strude, the title of Danish photographer Trine Søndergaard‘s first solo exhibit at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, refers to the mask-like garment traditionally worn by women on the Danish island of Fanø to cover their faces from the wind, sun and sand. Today, this folk costume is worn only for an annual fête day, and so over the last three years, Søndergaard visited the island for this celebration. Each time, she photographed women by a window in a small attic as they dressed for the festivities.

Though the Strude series is not a direct study of either the place or the women’s clothing, the series expresses Søndergaard’s fascination with the culture on the island and with folk costume as the bearer of meaning and specific codes. At the same time, they reflect Søndergaard’s interest in the viewer’s perception of imagery.

The contemporary women in these photographs seem to be of another place and time, classically posed, costumed, and seated in a room where chronological signifiers have been purposefully erased. The seemingly straightforward images are in fact loaded: the current polemic of veiling, the incongruity between the clothing and the time period, and the inward gaze of the sitter provoke the viewer to pause and contemplate these photographs and their meaning. Søndergaard’s attention to almost imperceptible moods and elements – how much is visible, what is said and what is unsaid, what is exposed and what is unexposed – makes them intoxicating.

Strude is open through July 2nd.

Trine Søndergaard: Strude
Bruce Silverstein Gallery
535 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
T: 212. 627. 3930
www.brucesilverstein.com

*above, Strude #17

*above, Strude #16

*above, Strude #19

*above, Strude #20

*All images © Trine Søndergaard, courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, NY.

Swiss-born, New York-based photographer Henry Leutwyler‘s new series, “Neverland Lost: A Portrait of Michael Jackson,” considers Jackson’s life through the artifacts he’s left behind: the iconic white glove, the black hat, the bejeweled jackets. Shot at Neverland Ranch in the year prior to Jackson’s death (when these items were intended for auction), this extensive series of archeological-style object portraits reveals a side of Jackson most were not privy to: the life of a man caught between his public persona as one of the greatest entertainers of all time and his sequestered, private life. Collectively, they also compose an adult Jackson’s self-constructed fantasy world, one which seemed in many ways an attempt to recreate a childhood he may never have really had.

Now, Leutwyler’s series has been published in gorgeous book form by Steidl, (available for purchase through Amazon), and an exhibit of the same name is open now through August 14th at M+B in Los Angeles. Below, check out photographs from the series, plus an interview with Leutwyler for Center Stage, Mark Gordon’s weekly radio show.

According to the ever-eloquent Leutwyler: “This collection of photographs was never intended to be a book. In February of 2009, I flew to California on a magazine assignment to photograph the iconic white glove of pop star Michael Jackson. Even though I am a lifelong portrait photographer, I have always had the urge to investigate people through the simplicity of the artifacts that make up their lives. I went to Los Angeles with one vision in mind and little more than a day to capture it. Michael Jackson’s primary home at Neverland had been vacant for several years and his belongings lay packed and stored in crates, awaiting public auction. When I arrived at the venue for the shoot, I had no idea what I’d find. What I discovered in those crates evoked in me a deep sadness. From the man who would be king, his artefacts were of the simplest design. A sequinned tube sock. A child’s trinket. The famous glove – so revealing in its dime store simplicity, so mundane in its plainness. I completed the initial assignment in two days, yet found myself unable to leave. My assistants and I remained on location for another twenty-four hours, poring over more than a thousand items from which we had to choose our images. I returned to New York after three days, with a premonition that the task wasn’t finished.”

He goes on: “It seems that an individual’s belongings rarely become available without some tragedy as a backdrop. Despite my exhaustive efforts to create a window into Jackson’s private world, the portrait was not complete. I knew there were other objects that had not been made available to be photographed. In April of 2009, I flew back to California. Through perseverance and good fortune, we were granted one last access. This time, when I returned to New York, I had the pieces I needed to complete the story. Shortly thereafter, our investigation became a documentation of a life cut short. It is said that the Pharaohs built tombs to reveal their lives to future generations. Michael Jackson sacrificed his childhood to the calling of his musical gift. Neverland was the pyramid he constructed to a lost childhood. The artifacts captured in this book return us to the Neverland he lost.”

Henry Leutwyler’s work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Esquire and Vanity Fair. In 2008, Leutwyler was the recipient of the ASME Magazine Cover of the Year award and recognized as the Graphis Photographer of the Year. His work has also received acclaim from the Art Directors Club of New York, The Society of Publication Designers, Photo District News, D&AD, American Photography and the James Beard Foundation. For more information on Henry Leutwyler – and to see more of his stunning work – visit henryleutwyler.com.

*All images courtesy of Henry Leutwyler.

Renato D’Agostin‘s photographs are deeply rooted in the classic elements that make up his medium. Light and shadow are fused by extreme angles and the compression of space and timelessness. The young Italian photographer’s images are painterly abstracts, sketches of a place that are sometimes unrecognizable, recontexturealized as shape, form and an interaction, a push and pull between negative and positive spaces. Quite often, D’Agostin’s contemporary images can even call to mind the fluidity and cinematic style of William Klein’s iconic 1950′s homage to Rome. See below for two of D’Agostin’s city tributes: “Metropolis” and “Tokyo Untitled.”

D’Agostin is represented by the Randall Scott Gallery in Brooklyn, NY.

Tokyo Untitled…

*above: Tokyo Untitled no. 8, 2008; Silver Gelatin Print; 12×16″ edition of 25; 16×20″ edition of 10; 30×40″ edition of 5

*above: Tokyo Untitled no. 2, 2008; Silver Gelatin Print; 12×16″ edition of 25; 16×20″ edition of 10; 30×40″ edition of 5

above: Tokyo Untitled no. 14, 2008; Silver Gelatin Print; 12×16″ edition of 25; 16×20″ edition of 10; 30×40″ edition of 5

*above: Tokyo Untitled no. 15, 2008; Silver Gelatin Print; 12×16″ edition of 25; 16×20″ edition of 10; 30×40″ edition of 5

*above: Tokyo Untitled no. 16, 2008; Silver Gelatin Print; 12×16″ edition of 25; 16×20″ edition of 10; 30×40″ edition of 5

Metropolis…

*above: Metropolis no. 5, 2007; Silver Gelatin Print; 12×16″ edition of 25; 16×20″ edition of 25; 30×40″ edition of 5

*above: Metropolis no. 14, 2007; Silver Gelatin Print; 12×16″ edition of 25; 16×20″ edition of 25; 30×40″ edition of 5

*above: Metropolis no. 15, 2007; Silver Gelatin Print; 12×16″ edition of 25; 16×20″ edition of 25; 30×40″ edition of 5

*above: Metropolis no. 8, 2007; Silver Gelatin Print; 12×16″ edition of 25; 16×20″ edition of 25; 30×40″ edition of 5

*above: Metropolis no. 9, 2007; Silver Gelatin Print; 12×16″ edition of 25; 16×20″ edition of 25; 30×40″ edition of 5

*above: Metropolis no. 11, 2007; Silver Gelatin Print; 12×16″ edition of 25; 16×20″ edition of 25; 30×40″ edition of 5

*above: Metropolis no. 18, 2007; Silver Gelatin Print; 12×16″ edition of 25; 16×20″ edition of 25; 30×40″ edition of 5

Over the last 25 years, Dutch-born, New York-based artist Irene Vlak has had the opportunity to travel the globe. “Upon reflection of my experiences,” Vlak says, “what struck me the most are not the differences of people everywhere, but rather their similarities.” This sense of commonality is a key tenet in her artwork. “I celebrate the unity of our humanity, while appreciating the esotericism of each culture…Fusing language through expressions, cultural props, paint and sculpture, my photographs draw attention to timeless fundamental human emotions and feelings that transcend cultural and geographical boundaries.”

For “Bad News,” her latest paint and photography series centered around the idea of turning lemons into lemonade, Vlak combined paint, lemons and often sour newspaper clippings to create instances of beauty. Describing the work, she says: “Bad news always comes in multiples. They say threes, but I find it can go up much higher than that. Whether this is a result of a change in attitude or perspective or because this is the delivery schedule of the ‘bad news witch,’ I do not know. I am not a psychiatrist nor sociologist, I am an artist and this is how I make my lemonade.”

Below, Vlak shares four of the twenty potent images that make up “Bad News.” To see Vlak’s “Painted Petals” series on ArtSlope, click here. To learn more, or to inquire about sales, visit irenevlak.com.

*All images courtesy of Irene Vlak.

Now showing at Howard Yezerski Gallery: Neeta Madahar’s “Flora”

Photographer Neeta Madahar‘s new allegorical portrait series, Flora, began with Madahar asking friends to choose flowers that had been adopted for use as women’s names. The chosen flowers then became the organizational theme for the portrait series, through which Madahar combined images from traditional art history with the modern effects and artifice of a commercial portrait studio. The results are images that undo the myth of the “eternal feminine.”

Madahar’s subjects appropriate imagery found in representations stretching back to antiquity, re-spun through the eyes of a modern female artist. As Allan Doyle writes in the forthcoming book, “Flora,” to be published by Nazraeli Press: “Flora – the Roman deity of flowering and fruit-bearing plants – was traditionally depicted as a young woman surrounded by reveling admirers bearing floral tributes. In Madahar’s Flora series, her inspiration was not Botticelli but the stylized portrait photography of the 1930-50s including that of Cecil Beaton, Angus McBean and Madame Yevonde. In particular it was Yevonde’s Goddesses, a series of photographs of costumed doyens of 1930s British society that served as her point of departure. Madahar’s models do not grace the pages of society or glamour magazines, they are real women whose bodies and comportment exemplify a willful sense of self-possession won through lived experience.”

Doyle continues: “Flora undoes myths of the eternal feminine through its embrace of kitsch and artifice. The dramatic poses of the models match their theatrical settings. The sets flaunt their homespun construction with details like the wires that suspend a painted thunderbolt in mid air; but the photos’ technical execution demonstrates a level of expertise that prevents us from mistaking this as a group of women simply playing dress-up. For all their humor, these photographs are also infused with an air of melancholy. Surrounding her subjects by blooms at their peak, Madahar underscores the vulnerability of human flesh. The glare of lights and exquisite detail of the prints reveal the delicate traces of lives lived, signs that Madahar has chosen not to erase. Although Madahar’s subjects have been given the opportunity to fashion their own images of idealized femininity it is ultimately their failure to fully incarnate these archetypes that makes the photographs so poignant.”

Flora by Neeta Madahar
Showing through July 6, 2010
Howard Yezerski Gallery
460 Harrison Ave.
Boston, Massachusetts 02118
Tues. – Sat. 10 – 5:30pm
617.262.0550
www.howardyezerskigallery.com

*above: Sharon with Peonies

*above: Lisa with Primroses

*above: Lee with Fuchsias

*above: Kate with Rosemary

*Images courtesy of Howard Yezerski Gallery.

Now showing at Jen Bekman Gallery: “…Practice…,” photographer Gregory Krum‘s first NY solo show, explores the concept of art making, and the ways in which truth is derived simply by virtue of belief. Krum – also the retail director of the shop at Cooper-Hewitt Museum – offers three series of photographs for his debut show, titled after Gerhard Richter’s book, “The Daily Practice of Painting,” in which the author states, “Art is the highest form of hope.”

In line with Richter’s words, the three series are based on one simple but potent sentiment: Here is to all the unprovable truths, bravely fueled solely by belief.

Series include:
*Devotion to an endeavor. Manifested as images from the climbers’ cemetery in Zermatt at the base of the Matterhorn, images of dust and sand whose form is stolen from pictures I love or react to, i.e. Vija Celmins or Thomas Struth. Portraits of houseplants made with a cell phone camera, and in the case of ‘Cherifa Tree’ whose form is stolen from Brice Marden and whose content is stolen from the tree through which Jane Bowles’ lover, Cherifa, controlled her.

*Interiors that explore objects as containers of meaning, the meaning we place in them, and the extent to which all man-made objects are an act of communication

*Devotional offerings…the daily practice.

The 24 small photographs – pinned in a grid to the wall by the artist – that depict devotional offerings made by Krum in varying states of decay may be the most engaging. The repetition of these sculptural objects mimics the daily rituals that become symbols of belief. The artist’s daily compulsion to create is rooted in the same faith that inspires the spiritual to practice these rituals.

…Practice…
Photographs by Gregory Krum
On display at Jen Bekman through June 27th.

Images below…

*above: Zermatt (I Chose to Climb)

*above: Krum’s Dust No 65

*above: Untitled Mantle

*above: Offering 46

*above: Offering 66

*above: Offering 79

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring Street
New York, NY 10012
Tel: 212.219.0166

*Images courtesy of Gregory Krum.

Iranian born photographer, videographer and filmmaker Shirin Neshat first rose to the international stage in the mid-90s with a photo series called Women of Allah, an intense body of work exploring women and martyrdom in Islamic culture. Since then, her work has progressed from photographs to video installations and short films, covering difficult topics like Eastern and Western boundaries, men and women, the sacred and the profane, exile and belonging.

A new book out this month entitled, simply, Shirin Neshat, explores the evolution of Neshat’s potent imagery (see below!). Featuring a foreword by world renowned artist Marina Abramovic and an essay by art critic Arthur Danto, this stunning collection covers everything from Women of Allah, focusing the lens on militant Muslim women, to her first feature film, Women Without Men, based on a novella by Shahrnush Parsipur, which was banned from the author’s native Iran. The film follows the lives of four women during the summer of 1953, when an American-led coup d’etat brought down Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister and reinstalled the Shah to power. Notably, Women Without Men makes its U.S. debut this year, and has already earned the Silver Lion for best director at the Venice Film Festival and been selected as part of 2010′s New Directors/New Films program of MoMA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Neshat’s work is boldly beautiful, incredibly powerful, and at times even stark: women cloaked in black veils with excerpts of Farsi poetry inscribed across the surface; videos of clans of men and women in barren landscapes chanting, sacred burial rituals, groups of men and women listening to rousing moralistic sermons in a public hall, and more recently, magical realist works in which women fly or plant themselves in gardens to ensure their fertility.

Shirin Neshat is available now through Amazon or Rizzoli.

Shirin Neshat
essay by Arthur Danto
foreword by Marina Abramovic
Published by Rizzoli
Hardcover, $75.00

*above: Shirin Neshat, Women of Allah Series, 1994. B&W RC print (photo taken by Cynthia Preston), 31 x 46 1/2 inches (79 x 118 cm). Copyright Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York.

*above: Shirin Neshat, Allegiance with Wakefulness, 1994. B&W RC print & ink (photo taken by Cynthia Preston), 46 3/4 x 37 1/8 inches (118.7 x 94.3 cm). Copyright Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York.

*above: Shirin Neshat, Stories of Martyrdom, 1994. B&W RC print and ink (photo taken by Cynthia Preston). 11 x 14 inches (27.9 x 35.6 cm). Copyright Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York.

*above: Shirin Neshat, Production Still. Rapture, 1999. Copyright Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York

*above: Shirin Neshat, Rapture Series, 1999. Gelatin silver print. 44 x 69 inches (111.8 x 175.3 cm). Copyright Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York

*above: Shirin Neshat, Passage Series, 2001. Cibachrome print. 51-1/8 x 63 inches framed. 130 x 160 cm framed. Copyright Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York

*above: Shirin Neshat, Passage Series, 2001. Cibachrome print. 51-1/8 x 63 inches framed. 130 x 160 cm framed. Copyright Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York

*above: Shirin Neshat, Passage Series, 2001. Cibachrome print. 42 x 63 1/8 inches (106.7 x 160.3 cm) framed. Copyright Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York

*All images courtesy of Gladstone Gallery, New York