East vs. West: Female Artists of Iran

The cultural state of women in Iran has gone through many changes since the beginning of the 20th Century. The first of these revolutions was the Persian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911) during the reign of the Qajar dynasty, which established a parliamentary government system in Iran. Women played a pivotal role in the revolution and soon were seen taking positions in jobs previously held by men, with more women becoming journalists and writers. In the 1920s, the revolutionist movement lost power to the Pahlavi dynasty. Ruler Reza Shah Pahlavi was ruthless and asserted dominance over the multi-party system, turning him into the head of a one-party state. His secret police imprisoned and tortured those who rebelled against him. The rights women had gained so far were taken away. They were no longer allowed to hold positions in public offices, and the reforms for mass education and paid employment were also dissolved. However,  in the 1960s, the Shah's son, who became the successor, Mohammad Reza Shah, began to implement more laws concerning women rights. In 1962, the Shah began a White Revolution, giving more suffrage and rights to women. For example, the age of marriage for girls was changed from 13-15 years old to 18 years old, polygamy became more restricted, and divorces were easier to obtain. His father, Reza Shah, had already instituted a ban on wearing the Islamic hijab, or veil, out in public during his rule ("Women's rights in Iran").  Despite these reforms, women, alongside the men, protested against the ruling family, who was eventually overthrown during the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The new Iran, called the Islamic Republic of Iran, led by new religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini, repealed many of the rights and laws the Shahs had instituted in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Women were forced to resume wearing the hijab again, but this time with the chador, a full body cloak. The Iranian people fought the Revolution in order to obtain more freedoms and individual rights from the Shah, but only succeeded in replacing one power for another when Khomeini and his mullahs, Islamic clerics, took over, "Khomeini and the mullahs-and a roving army of 'spiritual enforcers' knows as the Revolutionary Guards-ended up substituting one autocratic regime for another. In doing so, they dashed the hopes of millions of Iranians who thought the revolution would bring more freedom, not less" (Cohen).

Graffiti Wall with Ayatollah Khomeini and 'Ali Shariati, 1981

The new Islamic Republic of Iran focused on ridding the country of the Western influences that had dominated the Pahlavi Dynasty and its reign. The United States had supported the previous Shah autocracy in order to prevent the spread of communism, a fear which was prevalent during this period in world history, the Cold War Era. During the Revolution, Khomeini's two most popular slogans, against the West and the United States were " the Great Satan," and the "enemy of Islam" (Cohen).  Once Khomeini came into power western culture, namely music and art, was strictly banned. Above is a graffiti wall art depicting anti-West sentiments, with Khomeini pictured on the right and 'Ali Shariati, a revolutionary sociologist, on the left. Protesters would often times use white paint to cover previous slogans, and either use theirs or the blood of others injured or dead to write ("Graffiti Wall with Ayatollah Khomeini and 'Ali Shariati").

The Significance of the Veil

The veil, also known as the hijab, has many different meanings for women in the Middle East. Once a girl hits puberty, the wearing of the veil is a subject for personal consideration. Some who wear the veil see it as following God's commandment of being modest and covering their heads to show their devotion. This is a personal choice for them. Others wear the veil as a way to respect their cultural beliefs, showing the outside world they are Muslim and "provide witness of their faith" (Dr. Saher Amer). There are also others who wear the veil to voice their social and political ties to their home country and to protest against the preconceptions of the West. (Dr. Saher Amer).
There are also those who choose not to wear the veil, also for religious and cultural purposes. Some women see the veil as drawing attention to themselves, mainly in Western society, which defeats the scripture concerning modesty and not calling attention to oneself. Others feel the veil has taken the focus away from their personal and spiritual relationship to God by becoming the focal point for their Islamic religion. Many women feel wearing the veil is a deeply personal choice and commitment, and this choice has been taken away from them multiple times. The Shah took away their choice to wear it when he came into power by banning its use in public, and Khomeini took away their choice to now wear it by forcing its use.
This post will focus on two Iranian women who grew up in Pre-Revolutionary Iran and show how their artwork voiced the Revolutionary changes they've witnessed during these times and their own personal rebellions against them.

Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis: A Story of Childhood-The Veil

Marjane Satrapi was born in 1969 in Tehran, Iran. She is a graphic novelist, illustrator, director, and author of children's books. Though she is now a French citizen, her early childhood and later adulthood was spent in Iran during and after the Revolution. Her books Persepolis: A Story of Childhood,and Persepolis: A Story of a Return describes her and her family's personal experiences under the reign of the Shahs to the coming of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The stories, themselves, are a piece of artwork, for it is told in the form of graphic images, almost like a comic book.
Satrapi is related to the Qajar Dynasty, so her family was deeply against Reza Shah's rule. Her grandfather was imprisoned once the Shah came into power. Her parents were in favor of Communism and fought against the Shahs in the Islamic Revolution, however they came to regret this decision once Khomeini began his religious rule. The image on the right shows Satrapi's confusion on the enforcement of the veil after the Revolution when she was a little girl, and how the forcing of wearing the veil correlated with the new religious fervor of Islam being instituted.

Persepolis 2: A Story of A Return-The Socks, Image 1

Persepolis 2: A Story of A Return-The Socks,  Image 2

Persepolis 2: A Story of A Return-The Socks, Image 3

When she returned to Iran from Vienna, she attended the Islamic Azad University in Tehran, studying Graphic Arts. However, the wearing of the veil made it extremely difficult for her and her fellow female classmates to hone their artistic skills. Women were forbidden to look upon males, especially nude,  and women were forbidden to be nude and must be drawn wearing the hijab and chador. Marjane's time in the western culture of Europe spurred her towards rebellion and her parents made her leave Iran and settle permanently in France. They feared she would be killed for her outspoken behavior towards the veil, the ban on wearing makeup, and all anti-western influences she was forced to live by.

Shirin Neshat

Women of Allah-Untitled, 1996

Women of Allah-Speechless, 1996

 Shirin Neshat is an Iranian visual artist who was born in 1957 in Qazvin, Iran. Her parents immersed the family in western culture, and even enrolled her in a Catholic School in Tehran. She left to attend college in California around the time of the Revolution and returned to Iran in 1990 to visit her family.  In the Art in Exile video below on the right side of the page, Neshat describes how she tried to be neutral as an artist when portraying the Iranian culture and women, because she was technically an outsider, who had not been present during the Revolution. However, her work became more critical as it progressed, and she became "a voice for her people, but unable to go home" ("Shirin Neshat: Art in Exile".) I highly recommend watching the video, it is an emotionally inspirational interview from her. She says, "every Iranian artist in one form or another is political. Politics have defined our lives. If you're living in Iran, You're facing censorship, harassment, arrest, torture...at times execution" and that living outside of Iran means living in exile, experiencing the pain of never being able to return to see those you love ("Shirin Neshat: Art in Exile").
Pictured above are two of Neshat's first works of art in her Women of Allah series, Untitled, 1996 and Speechless, 1996. In her series she features poetry from female Persian poets, some of which had been banned by the Islamic Republic. Untitled, 1996 features the poem I Pity the Garden by Forrough Farrokhzad written in Neshat's own handwriting on the fingers of the woman, disregarding the strict dictates of Islamic calligraphy. ("Shirin Neshat: Untitled, moma.org). It reads the first stanza of the poem:
No one is thinking about the flowers
No one is thinking about the fish
No one wants to believe that the garden is dying
that the garden is slowly forgetting its green moments. ("Shirin Neshat: Untitled", moma.org)
In the poem, the garden is seen as a metaphor for a woman. She has her fingers placed before her lips to signify she is speaking, and the poetry painted on her fingers is what she is saying, an effort of a woman to speak in the most un-speakable way; the words she wishes to say are inscribed on her hands. ("Shirin Neshat: Untitled", moma.org)
The poetry of Tahereh Saffarzadeh is written on the face of the next photograph in the series, Speechless, 1996. The muzzle of the gun is placed on the side of the woman's face, inside the viel and next to where her ear is, mimicking a piece of jewelry. The poem is about a woman who pleads with her brothers to join the Revolution. Neshat uses this image to show how the women of Iran were desperately fighting for the right to control their voice and protest. 

Conclusion and Aesthetic Response

Both Marjane Satrapi and Shirin Neshat became political activists because of their gender and how they expressed their personal beliefs about their culture and religion through their artistic skills. They were both also exposed to Western culture, and knew the impact it  had on their lives and how it changed not only their own perspectives of Iranian religion and culture but also the rest of the world's understanding of it. The veil and the choice to use it became an important aspect of their works because it's strongly tied to their lives and the lives of their people. Satrapi used her graphic art to tell her story and show others how the Revolution impacted her people and her life. The black and white of her drawings contrast sharply with each other. It is a symbolic meaning of how the different sides of opposition in Iran see the political and religious issues being fought over as black or white. You are either for the veil or against it, for democracy or against it, for God or against Him, there is no in-between. Neshat uses the writing on the veiled woman to show the forbidden and unspoken desires within their hearts. The poetry she has chosen has a significant purpose by not only showing the sorrow of the plight of the woman, but also the need for permission from others to decide their fates and their choices.
For Marjane Satrapi and Shirin Neshat, it's not about just the veil, but the many choices and freedoms that have been taken away from them. Many countries and nations in the West see the wearing of the veil as a sign of oppression for women. However, women of the East do not share the same view, for it is not that simple. Why did women rise up against the Shahs after they were being granted suffrage and more rights and help fight the Iranian Revolution of 1979? One of the reasons, among many, is because the Shah took away their choice on whether or not they could wear the veil in public, thus preventing them from exercising their religious and cultural freedom.
The West's presence also has had an impact on the revolutions happening in Iran since the 1920s. The United States and Britain heavily influenced the Pahlavi Dynasty's reign, which only further propelled and spread the propaganda used against them during the Revolution by Khomeini and his supporters. Today, the correlation between women's rights, the veil, and the Islamic religion is often misunderstood in Western society. When I first learned about the veil, my understanding of what it symbolized was deeply rooted in my culture. I never thought women would want to wear something that forced them to be submissive and left them powerless, for that is what I understood it to mean. However, as I began to read more about the hijab, I realized it had nothing to do with the actual veil but the choice concerning its use that was being forced upon women.
I first read Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood a few years ago for one of my English classes and it was an emotional and educational read for me. I especially liked how Satrapi told her story in the form of a graphic comic book. I have not read the second book but it is on my future reading list. I admire Neshat and her drive to tell and show the world the real image of Iranian women and their convictions. When I look upon the two photographs from her Women of Allah series, it moves me and makes me appreciate my culture and my right to personal choice. They are both the voice of their people, and without their art the rest of the world will only have the knowledge of Iran and its women obtained by misconception.

Works Cited

Dr. Saher Amer. "Women>Veiling> What is the Hijab and Why do Women Wear it?" arabsinamerica. University of North Caroline-Chapel Hill, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://arabsinamerica.unc.edu/identity/veiling/hijab/

Cohen, Roger. "1979: Iran's Islamic Revolution." TheNewYorkTimes: Upfront. Scholastic, 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/upfront/features/index.asp?article=f091806_TP_Iran. 

"Graffiti Wall with Ayatollah Khomeini and 'Ali Shariati." University of Chicago. University of Chicago Library, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/iranianposters/revolution.html. 
 
"Qajar Dynasty." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Apr. 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qajar_dynasty.

"Marjane Satrapi." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 8 Apr. 2015, Web. 23 Apr. 2015.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjane_Satrapi

"Pahlavi Dynasty." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Mar. 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pahlavi_dynasty.

"Persepolis: A Story of A Childhood-The Veil." cbldf.org. Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://cbldf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/persepolis.jpg

"Persepolis 2: A Story of A Return-The Socks (Images 1 and 2)." sacredchaos.com. Sacred Chaos, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://www.sacredchaos.com/readings/reviews/satrapi_persepolis_2.html

"Persepolis 2: A Story of A Return-The Socks (Image 3)." orble.com. On Topic Media, 2 Nov. 2010. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://www.orble.com/persepolis-2007-marjane-satrapi/ 

"Persian Constitutional Revolution." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation,  21 Feb. 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Constitutional_Revolution.

"Shirin Neshat: Art in Exile." ted.com. Ted Conferences, Dec. 2010. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://www.ted.com/talks/shirin_neshat_art_in_exile#t-492465.  

"Shirin Neshat." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 9 Mar. 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirin_Neshat. 

"Shirin Neshat: Speechless, 1996." moma.org. MoMa Mutlimedia, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/audios/27/652.

"Shirin Neshat: Untitled, 1996." moma.org. MoMa Multimedia, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/audios/27/653.

 "Speechless, 1996." gladstonegallery.com. Gladstone Gallery n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://www.gladstonegallery.com/artist/shirin-neshat/work#&panel1-4.

"Untitled, 1996." gladstonegallery.com. Gladstone Gallery, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://www.gladstonegallery.com/artist/shirin-neshat/work#&panel1-8.

"Women's rights in Iran." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Apr. 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights_in_Iran.