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Birth
Born in Qazvin, Iran -
Period: to
Escaped Iran
Neshat left Iran to study art in Los Angeles in 1974, just prior to the Iran Islamic Revolution, as she had been brought up to accept Western values by her father. -
Islamic evolution
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Exhibition of photographic works
In 1993, she began exhibiting her first photographic works to critical acclaim. Although trained as a painter, Neshat contends that photography—black and white—conveys clarity and simplicity unlike any other medium. -
Exiled from Iran
Her life in exile and nostalgia for a home she was officially banned from in 1996 informed her earliest bodies of work. In retrospect, she can see her obsession with narrating Iranian history in an allegorical way in her work. -
More exhibitions
Neshat took her work to even further and more prestigious destinations. She held exhibitions—which included video, music and multi-media elements— in London, Berlin and the Spanish city of León.