Shirin Neshat, surely one of the most intense artists of recent years, is Iranian (Qazvin, 1957) and has chosen to live in the United States. The conflict between these two very different cultural universes has become the germinative nucleus of her work. The relationships between nature and culture, between expressions of desire and censure, betweenbody and space, are at the core of her work.

In her photographs as in her complex video installations, man and woman are represented as emblematic figures, and the dialectic of the sexes summarized as a series of contradictions that Shirin Neshat confronts lucidly, avoiding judgments while also indicating possible solutions.

This book documents her entire artistic production, from the first black andwhite photographs in which she gave voice to Iranian women by tracing onto their faces, hands and naked feet the verses of ancient Persian poets, up to the most recent color video and film works, in which ancient Persian poetry is m et with specially composed music by Sussan Deyhim and Philip Glass.