Ashkan Sahihi

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Ashkan Sahihi, Kimberly Emerson and Ambassador John B. Emerson at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2015. Sahihi's photo book Die Berlinerin with a portrait of Ms. Emerson is open .

xAshkan Sahihi (born November 27, 1963 in Tehran ) is a Persian-American photographer who is known for his conceptual series as well as for numerous portraits of important public figures.

life and work

Born in Tehran , Sahihi moved to Frankfurt am Main with his family at the age of seven .

While still at school there, he began to work as an assistant for photographers and to take photos himself. After graduating from high school, he worked as a photographer for various musicians and magazines as well as the Suhrkamp Verlag in Germany before moving to New York in 1987 . For German print media such as ZEITmagazin , Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin , Spex , Spiegel and DUMMY , he photographed prison inmates on death row as well as people from the hip-hop scene and the art world of downtown New York. As an insider among outsiders, he felt it was both a privilege and an obligation to visit these people and places and tell their stories. Through his early successes, publications such as New York Times Magazine, Vice , New Yorker , Washington Post Magazine, Rolling Stone as well as American and Japanese Vogue became aware of him, for which he also worked as a freelance photographer.

Sahihi felt increasingly constrained by the expectation widespread in photojournalism that a photographer would only illustrate the author's perspective, so that in the late 1990s he pushed himself further and further beyond the limits of photojournalism and began to work more conceptually. Various photo series were created up to 2016, from 2010 also during longer stays in London and Istanbul , where two publications with Thames & Hudson were made with Istanbul Contrasts and Art and Patronage . In 2011, Sahihi accompanied and documented the political movement Occupy Wall Street in New York in “very artistic, almost fragile photographs in black and white”. He has lived in Berlin since 2013, where he initially worked on the photographic-sociological study Die Berlinerin and two other photo series, also published in book form. He also exhibited several times in Berlin, most recently in the Weserhalle, and in March 2020 photographed the drag queen, performance artist and singer-songwriter Christeene for the German Interview . In autumn 2020, DISTANZ will publish the large-scale retrospective The New York Years , which will bring together a selection of 224 portraits taken in New York since the 1980s. Those portrayed include musicians such as David Bowie , Solange Knowles , Charles Bradley and members of the Wu-Tang Clan , the writer Paul Auster , the actor and director Dennis Hopper , artists such as Jeff Koons , Yoko Ono , Cindy Sherman and Nam -June Paik as well as the gallery owner and art collector Bruno Bischofberger .

Conceptual work

In his conceptual works, which he has been producing since the late 1990s, Sahihi primarily devoted himself to topics that, in his view, do not receive enough social attention or whose public discussion takes place under the wrong premises, such as drugs, media gender images or women in the military. In the early series in particular, the often seated models are mostly portrayed in familiar, but 'inappropriate' visual language for the respective situation. This code-switching stimulates unfamiliar feelings in the viewer and directs their thoughts onto unknown territory. Sahihi, who in his work always challenges the viewing and behavioral habits of his models and their viewers, never takes himself out of the line of fire. What all of his works have in common is that they also force him, as an artist, to get into uncomfortable situations and to push his emotional limits.

In the early series Faces, two white-gloved hands manipulate the facial features of 18 models by pulling, squeezing, pinching and pinching them according to external instructions that cannot be clearly located. With eight portraits of hypnotized models, each of which has a feeling - for example, helplessness, reticence, anger or regret - the Hypnosis series provokes through the unadorned display of naked emotions in a society that demands and rewards their suppression.

In 2006, Sahihi photographed himself with their families in the living rooms of six ex-girlfriends and one ex-wife for the Exes series, which is printed in various magazines . The resulting photographs are characterized by the tension that the presence of the photographer provokes in the new constellations created after the separation.  

The best-known of Sahihi's early conceptual works is the Drug Series , for which he convinced eleven non- users to take a certain drug and to be allowed to portray them during their trip - in front of a sterile white background, in medically strict imagery. The series was driven by frustration over the hypocrisy of the drug discourse in the United States and the fashion and entertainment industry's glorification of drug use and the associated look in the absence of addressing the devastating problem of substance abuse and its consequences. The series was shown at MoMA PS1 in New York in 2001 and at the Berlin Academy of the Arts in 2005, as well as parallel to Sahihi's installation 100 Million Ready in Cash .

Other works from the 2000s include the Women of the IDF series with portraits of women soldiers of the Israeli armed forces , the black and white series Camp X-Ray Guantanamo Bay , which is in the style of American high school yearbook photography and aesthetic Cum Series , the Armpit Series and the Kiss series , based on US corporate identities , for which he photographed himself kissing 18 people of different ethnicity, ages and genders.

Sahihi's most extensive work to date is the study Die Berlinerin - “A declaration of love to the working woman and to Berlin”, inspired by Clifford Geertz 's method of description of poetry , for which he wrote between 2013 and 2015 with the help of age, occupation, life plan, social origin, etc. . differentiated search categories made contact with various women temporarily or permanently living in Berlin. At meetings in a setting chosen by the models themselves, 375 portraits were created, which - together with the associated questionnaires - were exhibited in the galleries in the Körnerpark and Springer in autumn and winter 2015/2016 . The complete series was published by DISTANZ under the same title.

During this time, Sahihi repeatedly came across young men on the streets of Berlin who seemed strangely familiar to him. He realized that he saw the young gay men pouring into town from all over the world at the time as a reflection of the New York gay community of the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 2016, a gallery was created in the Kehrer Gallery, dealing with the New York past, shaped by creativity, freedom and the search for new forms of identity on the one hand, the devastating consequences of the AIDS epidemic on the other, and the new developments in Berlin in the 21st century Exhibited series with nude photographs of the Beautiful Berlin Boys , which was also published in book form. It is both an homage to old friends and “an important manifesto of support for today's LGBT community”.

The contact with sports surgeon Hanno Steckel and the shared fascination for Barbara Hepworth's hospital drawings resulted in a photo book, also published by Kehrer Verlag in 2017 , whose black and white photographs capture the rhythmic play of hands and movements in the operating room. The Operating Theater traces the similarities between artistic and surgical craftsmanship and thus helps the aesthetics of the latter to find new expression.

In spring 2019, Sahihi and friends from his neighborhood exhibited under the title The Last Supper Weserstr . Leonardo da Vinci's famous mural after. The large-format work exhibited in the Weserhalle Gallery encourages reflection on neighborhood and charity on the one hand, and the motifs of betrayal and greed contained in the Lord's Supper on the other.

Exhibitions

  • 1999 MoMA PS1 , New York City (Millennium Warm Up; group exhibition)
  • 1999 353 Broadway, New York City (Quiet, an artificial society of people living under surveillance; group exhibition)
  • 2000 Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York City (John Connelly Presents: Ashkan Sahihi (Scream, Faces))
  • 2000 Art Basel 31 (collaboration with Spex (2 special editions) and Andrea Rosen Gallery (Drug Series, Kisses))
  • 2000–2001 Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York City (Scream)
  • 2001 MoMA PS1 , New York City (Drug Series)
  • 2003 Axel Raben Gallery, New York City (Cum Shots)
  • 2004 Axel Raben Gallery, New York City (Women of the IDF)
  • 2005 Akureyri Art Museum; Akureyri, Iceland (100 million in cash)
  • 2005 Akademie der Künste , Berlin (Drug Series, in: The photographer's contract; group exhibition)
  • 2006 KW Institute for Contemporary Art , Berlin and MoMA PS1 , New York City (Drug Series, in: INTO ME / OUT OF ME; group exhibition)
  • 2007 Museum Morsbroich , Leverkusen (Drug Series, in: The photographer's contract; group exhibition)
  • 2007 MACRO Testaccio (MACRO FUTURE), Rome (Drug Series, in: INTO ME / OUT OF ME; group exhibition)
  • 2008 Kunsthaus Dresden (Drug Series, in: Under Influence; group exhibition)
  • 2012 Art Virus Ltd., Frankfurt a. M. (Pictures of a movement that shouldn't be. Occupy Wall Street New York – Frankfurt a. M .; group exhibition)
  • 2012 Art Virus Ltd., Frankfurt a. M. (Occupy, Prohibition is Now; group exhibition)
  • 2015–2016 Galerie im Körnerpark (The Berliner - The Portrait of a City)
  • 2015–2016 Galerie Springer Berlin (The Berliner - The Portrait of a City)
  • 2016–2017 Kehrer Gallery Berlin (Beautiful Berlin Boys)
  • 2017 Voies Off -Festival, Arles (Beautiful Berlin Boys, Operating Theater)
  • 2018 48 hours Neukölln (community project)
  • 2019 Weserhalle Berlin (The Last Supper Weserstr.)

Publications

Web links

Commons : Ashkan Sahihi  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Press and interviews

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ashkan Sahihi: Author's Page. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin. Accessed July 31, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Annika Schlendermann: The Occupy Movement in Pictures. In: Journal Frankfurt. March 16, 2012, accessed on July 31, 2020 (German).
  3. ↑ Ashkan Sahihi. The Last Supper Weserstr. In: Weserhalle. Accessed July 31, 2020 .
  4. ↑ "The War on Drugs" . In: Gavin McInnes, Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi (Eds.): The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll . Warner, New York 2003, ISBN 978-0-446-69281-6 .
  5. ^ Cash Money in the Arctic. A Project by Ashkan Sahihi. In: e-flux. January 11, 2005, accessed July 31, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Wolfgang Müller: 100,000,000 Icelandic crowns. In: taz. January 19, 2005, accessed July 31, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Eva Behrendt: Get to know each other and look closely. In: taz. October 5, 2005, accessed July 31, 2020 .
  8. ↑ DUMMY 8: Jews. Accessed July 31, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Carmen Böker: The Dummy Magazine is now also exhibiting its photographs: The gallery for the issue. In: Berliner Zeitung. December 27, 2007, accessed July 31, 2020 .
  10. ^ Henryk M. Broder: Sex as a substitute for sex. In: Der Spiegel. November 24, 2003, accessed on July 31, 2020 (German).
  11. ↑ Lena Lammers: 375 women, one photographer, one book: "Die Berlinerin". In: Edition F. November 28, 2015, accessed on July 31, 2020 (German).
  12. ↑ Portrait of a city: the Berliner. In: Stern. November 17, 2015, accessed on July 31, 2020 (German).
  13. ↑ Faces of the Capital. In: ZEIT magazine. October 23, 2015, accessed on July 31, 2020 (German).
  14. ↑ Ashkan Sahihi: The Berliner. In: Galerie Springer. Retrieved on July 31, 2020 (German).
  15. ^ Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg: Ashkan Sahihi - Beautiful Berlin Boys. In: vimeo. Accessed July 31, 2020 .
  16. ↑ Beautiful Berlin Boys: A Portrait Series by Ashkan Sahihi. In: I Heart Berlin. November 26, 2016, accessed on July 31, 2020 (German).
personal data
SURNAME Sahihi, Ashkan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Persian-American photographer
DATE OF BIRTH November 27, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Tehran