Splendid Gender Bending

Nat Muller
Curator / Writer

In this interview with Shahram Entekhabi, the theme of gender roles, migration, and cultural projection is discussed. The artist's work is discussed, and the interview is based on his series *Splendid Gender Bending* and his use of performative strategies and visual shifts to question ideas of masculinity and identity.

In the interview, the artist discusses his use of humor and staging in his work and the political and cultural context in which his works can be read. It is evident how his practice moves between his life, society, and his critical practice.

This interview is interesting because it reveals Entekhabi's relationship with cultural projection and his work's ability to subvert stereotypical images and provide new perspectives on identity and representation.

Excerpt from:

Splendid Gender Bending

Interview with Shahram Entekhabi

Nat Muller

Nat Muller:
In many of your video performances comic relief plays a strategic role. Why do you use humour and exaggeration to unravel certain social dynamics?

Shahram Entekhabi:
When I first came to the West and tried to articulate myself as a human being — and later as an artist — I did not plan to be humorous. I simply tried to adapt to the rules and rituals of a successful white male society. But my attempts mostly ended in failure.

I aspired to a kind of mimicry — trying to live a beautiful life — yet it always remained obvious that I was like a chameleon trying to resemble its surroundings: a leaf, a stone. In the end I remained this strange animal, an alien. Within this situation humour became the most efficient survival strategy.

The chameleon is funny. But also the system I was trying to adapt to — Western male hegemony — became funny to me. My humour therefore irritates both systems: the system of power and the one trying to imitate it.

Nat Muller:
Many of your performances take place in the street where you interact with passers-by. What role does public space play in your artistic practice?

Shahram Entekhabi:
Public space allows me to conquer a small piece of territory. Works like Cautions, No Exits, Attenzione or Ikaz use red-and-white caution tape to create a kind of parasitic architecture within existing structures.

The tape closes gaps in architecture and divides space into small islands. People become trapped inside these temporary structures or excluded from them. Reactions differ depending on location — the United States, Pakistan, Berlin or Istanbul.

I disappear afterwards and leave people alone with their interpretations. The borders I create are fragile — they can disappear within minutes. Like dogs marking their territory “despite the falling rain.”

Nat Muller:
Your work often stages masculinity in crisis — exaggerated, unstable, sometimes theatrical. What interests you about these gender performances?

Shahram Entekhabi:
This relates to two experiences. On the one hand there was the myth of the “super-male” in my childhood. After my father's death I became the only “man” in the house with my mother and three sisters.

On the other hand there is the role of the migrant from the Middle East in Europe — trying to adapt to a masculine world. In both cases I feel like a deserter from male identity, yet the male masquerade remains a fetish.

Preparing for characters like Islamic Star, Mladen, Mehmet or Miguel often requires weeks of transformation — growing beards, shaping moustaches, inhabiting a role. Sometimes the video lasts only seconds, but the process of becoming that character is fascinating.

To be a “real man” for a while can be strangely liberating.

Nat Muller:
In recent years there has been increasing interest in artists from the Middle East and their diasporas. These exhibitions often group very different practices together under geographical labels. What is your view on this?

Shahram Entekhabi:
The art system always has an ideological function. Western artists are still presented through the stereotype of the romantic artistic genius. Artists from the “oppressed world” are often presented as voices begging for freedom.

The Western art system then positions itself as the one generously giving them that voice.

Artists risk becoming useful tools within political narratives — and once trends change, they are forgotten again.

I do not see myself primarily as an “Iranian artist.” I see myself in relation to wherever my foot touches the ground — Lahore, Rostock, Cleveland or elsewhere. Yet people still label my work through my passport, my black hair or my imperfect English.

I try to resist such labels.

Nat Muller:
Your work often mixes religious imagery with global consumer culture. Is this a critique of cultural stereotypes?

Shahram Entekhabi:
Yes, because this mixture reflects my own reality. In my family some people were practicing Muslims, others were atheists. Religion once meant moral responsibility within society.

Today religiosity is often associated with violence or political conflict. My work explores the uncertainty we feel when confronting someone performing religiosity — or what we assume to be religiosity.

It reveals our prejudices about “the other.”

Nat Muller:
How is your work received outside Europe, particularly in the Middle East?

Shahram Entekhabi:
What exactly is the Middle East? Beirut, Tehran, Jerusalem, Baghdad?

Some works examine how the West imagines its “others.” For example in Mehmet I appear to prepare a violent act in public space — playing with stereotypes of the migrant criminal or terrorist.

In other contexts my work becomes more personal and less focused on stereotype analysis. Depending on the place where I work, I respond to specific situations.

Sometimes these works are difficult to read within Western art systems because they appear unfamiliar. But that is fine.

Nat Muller
Independent curator, writer and academic based in Amsterdam.