Feb 21, 2001
Heart Fever
Went to see an exhibition of work by Shirin Neshat last year at the Serpentine gallery. A combination of striking (if sometimes a little trite) b/w photographs and powerful film installations.
The most memorable were Fervour, Rapture and Turbulent – high contrast, high impact pieces about men/women public/privacy personal/anonymity, as well as exploring her experience of being an outsider in her own country after years in exile, as well as a woman in islamic culture. Really fascinating stuff, the more you know about it…
After watching the South Bank Show on Sunday night (well, last night – the lovely Niki taped it for me) I was reminded how ethereal, primal and gut-wrenching the music in Turbulent was – mentally, elementally stimulating – and was pleased to discover that the composer/performer, Sussan Deyhim has recorded a CD, which I’m going to try and get hold of. And speaking of artist/composer collaborations, I was interested to hear that Neshat is currently working with Philip Glass. Should be very interesting.
[Oh, small aside - I went to last summer's Serpentine exhibition with Mat, who, if I remember rightly, fell asleep in one of the video installations....incorrigible :o)]
Must go to the Serpentine more often. They have some cracking stuff there. Of course, they also have some absolute piffle…
Update: Found Sussan Deyhim’s CD Madman of God at Amazon, and have sneakily added it to my wishlist.
