- Title
- Harem
- Date Made
- 2014
- Medium
- Inkjet print
- Dimensions
- 59 1/16 × 39 3/8 × 1 1/4 in. (150.02 × 100.01 × 3.18 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2016.138.13
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Contemporary
- Curatorial Notes
Details of Nasir al-Din’s family life and lovers are preserved in a variety of sources, his own photographs of the royal harem among them. Women, and not only his domineering mother, Mahd Ulya, but also several of his wives, left their mark on his reign. Here the artist imagines the harem as a bordello, although the shah is more interested in his rabbit than in the temptations of his wives. In addition to Jayran and Anis al-Dawla, who stand provocatively in doorways on the lower level, on the upper floor, two other women, seemingly nude and posed in a sexualized manner behind sheer curtains, have their availability signaled by green elevator-like arrows above their windows.
- Selected Bibliography
- Komaroff, Linda. In the Fields of Empty Days: The Intersection of Past and Present in Iranian Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2018.
