February 10–March 26, 2006, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Shirin Neshat’s dual-projection work, Turbulent (1998), dramatizes gender inequality in the artist’s homeland, Iran. Specifically, it highlights the absence of women in public, musical performance. Turbulent is a vocal duel between male singer Shoja Youssefi Azari and female vocalist Sussan Deyhim. Azari performs facing the viewer. The auditorium behind him is filled with an all-male audience. He sings a traditional, passionate love song with lyrics by Jala al-Din Rumi, a thirteenth-century Persian poet and spiritual leader whose writings inspired Sufism, a mystical form of Islam. As Azari concludes, Deyhim, cloaked in black, her back to the viewer, begins singing to an empty hall. Her unsettling vocalization shatters expectations. Deyhim’s emotional improvisations are mystical utterances of haunting beauty. Liberated from the constraints of recognizable language, they become transcendent. Turbulent dramatizes dualities—male/female, rational/irrational, traditional/nontraditional and communal/solitary. It makes tangible the ways in which women express freedom in the midst of repression and reveals how they may threaten, disrupt, and reinvigorate rigid patriarchal systems.

This exhibition was supported by the Campbell Calvin Fund and Elizabeth C. Bonner Charitable Trust for exhibitions. Midwest Airlines was the official sponsor.