Shahram Entekhabi

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Shahram Entekhabi (born January 22, 1963 in Borudscherd , Iran ) is a German-Iranian artist who specializes in video art , photography , painting , installations, action art , live art and performances .

Life

In 1976 he began his studies at the Department of Graphic Design at the University of Tehran . 1979–82 he studied architecture , urban planning and the Italian language in Perugia and Reggio Calabria in Italy. In 1983 he moved to Berlin (West) and worked there as a freelance architect until 2000. Since the mid-1990s he was increasingly concerned with questions of visual culture and art, before working exclusively as a visual artist from 2001. Since then he has participated in numerous international exhibitions and projects. From 2003 to 2005 he collaborated with the Dutch literary scholar, cultural and art historian Mieke Bal on issues of post-migration and migration as an expression of the aesthetics of everyday life. In 2004 he was a visiting fellow at the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland / Ohio (USA). In 2006 he received the VASL scholarship in Lahore , Pakistan.

art

Shahram Entekhabi's artistic work relates to the rules of urban space and is inspired by the concept of the “flaneur” from the writings of Charles Baudelaire . He regards public space as hierarchized and dominated by the activities of white, heterosexual men from the middle class. In his performances, architectural interventions and video works he tries to develop alternatives to this practice.

In the video work "i?" from 2004 the figure of the so-called “migrant” appeared for the first time, which from then on became an important factor in his artistic work. The figure, which Entekhabi always embodies himself, wears a cheap suit, a shirt buttoned up to the neck and cheap, unfashionable shoes. In a conscious gesture, Entekhabi adapts certain attributes that identify the figure as belonging to the group of so-called guest workers, as they were recruited in West Germany since the economic miracle of the 1950s. Entekhabi sometimes exaggerates the figure in a slapstick-like manner by freezing his face in an expressionless static, using a special make-up and also giving his gait in the pants pulled up to the "flood" a strange awkwardness that is found in film characters from the 1920s, like Buster Keaton, for example. Entekhabi thus draws an arc into the past, while at the same time allowing the figure to act in absolutely contemporary and present-day situations. To a certain extent, he is putting the question of the extent to which the image of the guest worker in western society has changed at all or is not rather subject to extreme static. By embodying this figure himself, he, who has lived in Berlin as an Iranian citizen for over 20 years, addresses the complex and dichotomous relationship between perception of others and self-perception, the question of seeing and being seen.

In later works (“Miguel”, “Mladen”, “Mehmet”, “Islamic Star” (all 2006)), Entekhabi split up the figure of the migrant - as in a multiple personality disorder - and, in a radicalization of his initial concept, new versions of the figure developed. He is always concerned with clichéd ideas about migrants, holding up a mirror to us and the negative images of chauvinism, terrorism and crime that - especially since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 - have often developed in Western societies about male migrants were to throw back.

In addition, since 2001 he has also increasingly dealt with cultural practice in his home country Iran. He covers all female figures in fashion magazines, advertising brochures and reproductions of Persian miniatures, modern posters and postcards with a veil. By painting over female figures with the chador , he refers to the Iranian legislation that requires women to be fully veiled, as well as the censorship of images of women in books and magazines during the Islamic Revolution .

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 2011: Nothing Gold an Stay, Other Gallery, Beijing, China
  • 2010: Road Movies, The Cogut Center for the Humanities, Brown, University, Providence, RI, USA
  • 2007: santralistanbul, Istanbul - Turkey
  • 2006: Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt a. Main
  • 2004: Case Gallery, Case Western Reserve University , Cleveland
  • 2004: National Center for Contemporary Art / NCCA, Moscow

Literature (selection)

  • One Person's Trash is another Person's Treasure The book by Shahram Entekhabi from “the book by” series of Fine Arts Unternehmens Books AG. 2008 ISBN 3-03720-010-3

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Edition 5 Erstfeld Ruth Nyffeler, Jürg Nyffeler, Barbara Zürcher (eds.), Edition pudelundpinscher, Erstfeld, p. 38, 119 ISBN 978-3-9523273-8-8
  2. ↑ Far Near Distance. Shaheen Merali and Martin Hager. Berlin: House of World Cultures, 2004, 156 and 317.
personal data
SURNAME Entekhabi, Shahram
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Iranian-German artist
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Borudscherd , Iran