Shirin Neshat: Mourners from the Book of Kings

• The Shirin Neshat exhibition I Will Greet the Sun Again is at the Broad Museum Los Angeles from 19 Oct 2019 - 16 February 2020
• Shirin Neshat: Mourners from the Book of Kings features 14 stunning photographs inscribed with Persian writing

Neshat's "Mourners" from her The Book of Kings series, inspired by the epic Shahnameh by Ferdowsi (940-1020), are based on portraits of individuals residing in the slums of Cairo, where the promise of freedom and democracy following the uprising against the Mubarak regime failed to materialize.

Inscribed with Persian handwriting, the artist's black and white portraits confront the viewer with human bodies that face a struggle against hegemony in this overly politicized region marked by covert violence and suppression.

Schwerfel writes, "This art, beyond the political engagement of Iran's Green Movement and the mystique of the Arab Spring, is shaped by two opposing rhetorical systems that currently feud with each other on a global scale."

Shirin Neshat's works have been exhibited in museums such as Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Serpentine Gallery, London
Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin(Germany)
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis(USA)
Musee d'Art Contemporain de Montreal, Montreal(Canada)
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit (USA)
She has held exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (USA)
She participated in the 48th Venice Biennial (1999); Whitney Biennial (2000); Documenta XI (2002); and Prospect 1 New Orleans (2009).

Awards she was granted are: Grand Prize at the Gwangju Biennial (2000);
the First International Award at the 48th Venice Biennale (1999);
Hiroshima Freedom Prize (2005);
Dorothy and Lillian Gish Award (2006).

In 2009, Neshat made her first feature film titled Woman Without Men, and was awarded with Silver Lion prize for Best Director at the 66th Venice International Film Festival.
This is shown again at the Quad cinema New York in October 2019 .

Her feature film Looking For Oum Kulthum (2017) crafts a visually dazzling, multi-planed mirror between the mid-century Egyptian diva and the contemporary film director seeking a creative connection with her. It is being screened at important festivals all around the world.

Neshat's current photo series include The Book of Kings (2012), Our House is on Fire (2013), and The Home of My Eyes (2015

He published books on contemporary artists such as Georg Baselitz, Jannis Kounellis, Markus Lupertz, plus Kunst-Skandale, Kunst nach Ground Zero, or Kino und Kunst - Eine Liebesgeschichte, the first major book about the relationship between contemporary art and cinema.

In 1985, he founded Artcore Film and started shooting portraits of renowned contemporary artists. His documentaries are shown in festivals and retrospectives worldwide and receive numerous awards.

In 2002, he created and organized for the city of Cologne a new festival on artists' films under the name of KunstFilmBiennale, and in 2013 in Munich a festival of fiction films by contemporary artists called Kino der Kunst of which he still is artistic director.
Schwerfel lives and works in Cologne and Paris.