I’m an Iranian artist and my work is mostly about my culture, religion and gender. I started working around 2 decades ago, when I was thinking about these subjects and started to look for a medium that best expressed my thoughts. After trying different media such as Theater, video, painting. I found photography and then video to be the most effective and accessible mode of self-expression and representation.
Inspired by the imagistic richness and ubiquity of Iranian culture, I decided to tackle the subject of masculinity and image in Iran. I think that there hasn’t been enough work done on this subject especially by male Iranian Artists like myself. Thus, employing photography and video as artistic tools, I tried to introduce a different side of my culture through images to address cultural and religious aspects of where I came from and their homoerotic and homosocial potential.
I think contemporary art is not something that can be learnt only from schools, universities or books; I think one of the best ways to learn about art is through experience. I believe art looks more meaningful if the artist had worked on it by spending time getting involved with the subject closely and experiencing it rather than just reading or studying about it.
Personally, spending the best decade of my life in the middle of a revolution and war had taught me so much, I don’t think I would have ever been able to have the same experience just through reading or watching a movie about the this time. Furthermore, growing up in the male-centric institutional environment of an all-boys school and the army gave me ideas that manifested themselves through this photographic project. Thus, The images that I have retained and deposited to memory from my life during this period inform the images of this project, which deals with the intersection of history, identity, religion, and gender through imagistic explorations of the notion of masculinity in Persian culture (in religious ceremonies, sport events, and daily life).
My initial inspiration for this series came from looking at ancient drawings, existing in places such as Takht Jamshid and Perspolis. In this series of pictures, a man is hiding his face behind a red cloth/towel, which should usually cover the lower body; maybe he is ashamed of his past. We can’t see his face, but he has a sword in his hands. But in some images, you may notice that his hand is up and seems like he is about to give up, maybe after all, he is tired of putting up the veneer of toughness… maybe he is ready to quit.
In Sacrifice, I have tried to picture other aspects of masculinity. Here I drew my inspiration from both old folk tales and religious stories. Here I capture a fight between a father and a son. As the father notices that he has killed his son, and the father starts crying, the story softens and the hidden macho face is exposed. On another level, it is the story of Ibraham and Ismaeil. When it comes to sacrifice his own child, Ibraham has to fight his feeling to kill his son. I tried to picture the internal fight and struggle between his instinctual feeling as a father to preserve his son and the religious duty. In sacrifice, I had tried to expose all the humanity, love and tenderness behind rough, manly and masculine faces.
Zoorkhaneh is a traditional Iranian sports club for men. It is a place for them to learn about tradition, morality, and religion while simultaneously training their bodies. Men get together in this place, work out, and listen to their master who addressed them about issues of morality and religion. This sporting institution created a homosocial environment where men nurture them bodies and soul. Furthermore, since the men attending these spaces work out to show off their body, there is an (homo)erotically charges exhibitionist nature to the institution of Zoorkhaneh. Having said that, I am also aware that, due to cultural difference, what Zoorkhaneh signifies might be mistaken by a Western eye. What’s important to stress is that besides training their bodies, the men are reminded by their master/trainer that they have to work on their bodies and minds at the same time; and most importantly, the moves of the workout are spiritual moves that can get them closer to God.
The last set of images focus on the religious ceremony of “Ashoora,” held outdoors annually, even though the crowd is a mixture of men and women, the leaders and coordinators are only men. The whole ceremony has to be organized and led by men. What I’m trying to reach by these images is the tender, sensitive side of these masculine men while foregrounding the homosocial character of the ceremony.
Bio:
Sadegh Tirafkan (born July 3, 1965 in Karbala, Iraq) is an Iranian conceptual artist who divides his time between Toronto and Tehran. He graduated from Tehran University with a degree in Photography in 1989 and has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide.
#2009- 7 King Street East
Toronto, ON M5C 3C5
