Akbar Behkalam

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Akbar Behkalam (* 1944 in Tabriz , Iran ) is a German-Iranian painter and sculptor.

Life

Akbar Behkalam was born in 1944 in Tabriz , the capital of what is now the province of East Azerbaijan in Iran . From 1961 to 1964 he studied art at the Tabriz University of the Arts in Iran. After his military service in Iranian Kurdistan, he moved to Istanbul , where he studied fine arts at the Mimar Sinan University and became a master student of Prof. Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu. 1972 to 1974 he lived in various European cities, a. a. in Paris, Frankfurt, Rome and Berlin. In 1974 he went back to Iran to teach at the Tabriz Art School. Behkalam has lived in Berlin since 1976. Since 1989 he has also had a studio in Brandenburg. He is married and has two children.

plant

Akbar Behkalam's often large-format works often deal with political issues. While the early works were still very much influenced by New Realism in symbiosis with Persian miniature painting , later works are more abstract and expressive to this day. A frequently recurring theme is the formation and choreography of crowds.

The eventful history of his home country is a theme of his work again and again: the series “Persepolis” (1977–1979) deals with old Persian iconography, which is confronted with the firing squads of the Shah regime and was created under the influence of the Iranian revolution . In the eighties he created the series of works “Justice in Allah's Name”, which addresses the human rights violations of the Islamic Republic . From 1984 to 1986 Behkalam dealt extensively with the German Revolution of 1848 and created many large-format pictures, which were presented in his first major solo exhibition in 1986 at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin . In Berlin he is represented with several murals and monuments in public spaces, for example he designed the memorial for Cemal Kemal Altun in Berlin's Hardenbergstrasse.

Behkalam has shown his work in many solo and group exhibitions, both in Germany and internationally. In 2009 he was named the winner of the Tashkent Biennale of Uzbekistan.

Solo exhibitions (selection)

  • 1975 Seyhun Gallery Tehran, Iran
  • 1981 Art Office Kreuzberg-Bethanien, Berlin
  • 1982 Art Association Offenbach
  • 1982 City Gallery Schloss Oberhausen
  • 1987 State Art Gallery Berlin
  • 1987 Stadtische Galerie Schloss Oberhausen
  • 1987 Bochum Museum
  • 1987 City Gallery Saarbrücken
  • 1988 Überseemuseum Bremen
  • 1988 Linneborn Gallery, Bonn
  • 1988 Workshop I, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  • 1989 California State University , Los Angeles, USA
  • 1990 Phoebe Conley Art Gallery, Fresno, USA
  • 1991 International Gallery on Broadway, Los Angeles, USA
  • 1993 Villa Oppenheim (Berlin)
  • 1998 Galerie Georges Pompidou, Anglet / France (with Bernd Kaute and Johannes Heisig )
  • 2005 Spreeport, Ver.di, Berlin
  • 2006 Kunsthalle Arnstadt (with Dorsten Klauke and Trak Wendisch)
  • 2010 Galerie Linneborn, Berlin

Group exhibitions (selection)

  • 1977 Homage à Nazim Hikmet, Kreuzberg Art Office, Berlin
  • 1978 Berlin in Bottrop, Bottrop Culture Weeks
  • 1980 artist against war, NGBK, Berlin
  • 1981 30 years of BBK, Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin
  • 1983 1933 - Paths to dictatorship, Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin
  • 1983 300 years later, Museum of the 20th Century, Vienna
  • 1983 One week in September, Hilger Gallery, Vienna
  • 1984 Rationalization, Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin
  • 1984 Otto-Nagel Prize 1984, Wedding Town Hall, Berlin
  • 1984 I live in Germany, City Art Museum Bonn
  • 1984 The war hits everyone in the heart, Palace of the Arts, Minsk
  • 1986 The Other Country, Great Orangery, Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin / Museum Bochum / Paulskirche, Frankfurt / Main / Saarbrücken City Gallery; Culture under the tower
  • 1986 15 Berlin artists in Brazil, Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo / Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre
  • 1986 Berlin city views, Vienna, Amsterdam, Nijmegen, London, Istanbul, Paris, Bonn, Berlin
  • 1987–1988 Snapshot (traveling exhibition through Brazil) Joao Pessoa, Paraiba / Museo de Arte Contemporana / Blumenau, Porto Alege, Sao Paulo, Curitiba / Caracas, Venezuela
  • 2009 5th Tashkent Biennale, Uzbekistan. First price.

literature

  • Akbar Behkalam . Ed .: Volker Martin; Krista Tebbe. Frölich u. Kaufmann, Berlin 1981, ISBN 3-88725-055-9 .
  • Two among us / south wind over Berlin Kreuzberg . Ed .: Frederik Hetmann. Ararat Verlag, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-921889-12-X .
  • Akbar Behkalam. Movement and change, pictures and drawings 1976 - 1986 . Ed .: Gisela Staupe, Dieter Ruckhaberle. Staatliche Kunsthalle / Nicolai, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-87584-201-4 .
  • Akbar Behkalam. Crossing Borders . Ed .: Volker Martin. EA Seemann Verlag, Leipzig 2004, ISBN 3-86502-899-3 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Behkalam, Akbar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Iranian painter and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Tabriz , Azerbaijan Province , Iran