A Gaze through the Veil:

depicted wearing the chador and even at this the government did not approve of artdepicting women at all. The local paramilitaries (Hezbollahis) would call to thegalleries and order that any images of women in the Chador must be taken down fromthe walls and the windows; they used threatening action to achieve this. This type ofaction forces an artist to self- censor themselves, and to avoid any other attacks fromthese groups. This type of forced action results in a society which must functionwithout free expression.The revolution brought about the re-veiling of the women of Iran. This rule insistedthat every woman must wear the chador or hejab in public. This veiling was seen asan oppression of Iranian women, but many see it as a symbol of the division thatexists in Iranian women’s lives. This contrasts between the domestic domain, inwhich the women are free to wear and act in whatever way they please, to the exteriorworld where they must control all their actions and wear the chador. The extent ofthese restrictions can be indicated by the banning of women singing in public. ShirinNeshat addresses such issues in her film installations; in her work Turbulent sheexamines the restriction of the female voice in Iran and the sex-segregation that existsin society, which is a consequence of this fundamentalist structure. This change inIranian women’s lives is portrayed by many artists, but even the artists that do notwish to refer to the mandatory veiling in their work still must, as it is against all rulesto portray a women nude or without the chador in any piece of art. Neshat addressesthe re-veiling of Iranian women in her photographic series The Women of Allah, shehighlights the veiling of Iranian women but she does not portray them as oppressedhelpless women, they are shown as rebellious powerful women. I will discuss theseworks in depth in later chapters.At the height of the Revolution in 1979, all artistic activities were brought to a stop.Activities such as art courses were terminated and universities and art galleries wereclosed, this persisted for nearly a decade. The barriers that were placed against artwere also cemented by the Iran-Iraq war which took place from 1980 to 1988. At thistime the only art that was taking place was mainly commissioned by the government,this consisted of state propaganda; artists were commissioned to make murals andposters that glorified religious devotion, depicting spiritual leaders and promotingmartyrdom and heroism. After this dark period in the art world of Iran, and after