Shahram Entekhabi
Posted on March 19th, 2007 by mersenne_twister
written, directed, performed, and edited by shahram entekhabi
In “Islamic Star” Entekhabi is dressed as a type of orthodox Muslim moving through public space. On his white shirt he is wearing a green Islamic star that reminds us to the “Judenstern” that has been common in Nazi Germany. The work circles around the Western idea of the Muslim fundamentalist and creates a tension between perceiving the Muslims as a potential danger to public safety and the statement of the Muslims as the victims of prejudice and exclusion.
Ok he’s political, strong, powerful and very moving. His ideas and concepts are very inline with today’s issues. He questions modern day life in the western world on so many levels. While he introduces a religion factor, which ok religion is not high on my list, he presents it in such a way I cannot fault. He nails it…I am really really impressed. Who is he? He’s Shahram Entekhabi. An Iranian born artist now living in Berlin. He does various installations and artwork on several different mediums…
Ok so I need to backtrack a bit, and explain why I have changed my artefact assignment. The reason I have switched from Leigh Bowery to Shahram, is because I found Leigh Bowery too much. I didn’t like what he stood for…at the time, he was merely trying to show everybody what a wonderful life he had…and only now that he passed away hes been glorified as this profound movement thing, and yes I agree…he has left a mark…but it wasn’t his intention. I can’t call on his costumes as an art, I call them a psychological tool (ok we will probably go into a debate about what is art…but the fact remains, I can’t stand him at all.)
Shahram Entekhabi, is someone I have decided to continue forth with my project, after trawling through the net. I initially wanted to look at the deaf movement, being hard of hearing myself, I wanted to find out what sort of artwork was out produced by deaf people and see if their hearing has influenced their artwork. Then a couple of days later, I came across Shahram, and yeah so hes not deaf…but his work was so striking, I just possibly couldn’t pass it over. His work is so strong and moving. His work is very inline with the current affairs of the UK. He really homes in on the point, and yeah so religion is a strong point in some of his work, and I personally am not a fan of religion. I like how hes presented it. He’s taken something that is an ongoing debate and really presented in a different context.
I’m finding it hard to express it now, what hes done is basically taken something to illustrate the purpose of something. i.e. the hijab in islam, most people in the west consider it as oppressive and very demeaning of women, but then Shahram, presents it such that is it really demeaning when we have all these glossy magazines that is part of an ongoing debating i.e. skinny models etc, and painted on the outfits onto them, so they aren’t being devalued in that sense esp. the playboy magazine example.
It’s simple, effective, strong…and I love it. Stay tuned for some stuff.