May 9 2026
May 9 2026
On the occasion of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, the rooms of Palazzo Marin host Do U Dare!, the new film trilogy by Shirin Neshat, one of the most powerful and widely recognised voices in contemporary visual and cinematic art.
The exhibition is open to the public from 9 May to 6 September 2026, Wednesday through Sunday, 11.00–19.00.
The Work Do U Dare! draws from the true story of Nasim Aghdam, an Iranian-born woman who fled to the United States as a child to escape the persecution her family faced as members of the Bahá'í faith. Growing up in California in a state of isolation — disconnected from American society and increasingly estranged from her own cultural roots — Aghdam built an expressive world through a YouTube channel, where she performed singing and dancing videos charged with provocation and social critique.
Her content reached millions of views, until YouTube abruptly shut down her account. What Aghdam experienced as yet another act of censorship — mirroring what her family had already suffered in Iran — led her to a tragic end in 2018.Shot across three distinct socioeconomic settings in the New York metropolitan area, the trilogy unfolds in three separate chapters: the first, set in an immigrant neighbourhood in Brooklyn, portrays the uprooting and quiet desperation of the migrant experience; the second takes place in the financial district of Wall Street and explores the obsession with visibility, fame and public recognition; the third closes within Nasim's home, where she performs as a series of characters — singing, dancing, dismantling the iconography of American power and the objectification of women in the media.True to Neshat's artistic language, the trilogy moves between social realism in black and white and a magical, surreal dimension, translating into images Aghdam's mental fragility, her displacement, her inability to distinguish imagination from reality. The result is a meditation on exile, loneliness, the need to be seen, and the thin line between creation and self-destruction.
Accompanying the exhibition, Magonza editore publishes a monographic volume featuring texts by the curators and an essay by Giovanni Curatola, an internationally acclaimed scholar and specialist in Islamic art.The project is promoted by Associazione Genesi — founded in 2020 by Letizia Moratti — and by Banca Ifis, curated by Ilaria Bernardi and Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, and presented by Gladstone Gallery and Galleria Lia Rumma, in collaboration with Magonza editore.
Practical InformationThe exhibition is installed on the first floor of Palazzo Marin. Please note that the exhibition spaces are not accessible to wheelchair users. Pets are permitted only if they are small animals and carried in arms. Smoking is strictly prohibited throughout the venue, as is the consumption of food and beverages.
Shirin Neshat. Do U Dare!
Palazzo Marin — Calle del Piovan o Gritti, 2541 · 30124 Venice
9 May – 6 September 2026 · Wednesday–Sunday · 11.00–19.00