Shirin Fakhim- Contemporary Artists

Tehran Prostitutes

Shirin Fakhim, Tehran Prostitutes The Saatchi Gallery
 

Shirin Fakhim

Tehran Prostitutes

2008
Mixed media
Life size

Fakhim’s sculptures play on the duplicitous perceptions of streetwalkers, highlighting the hypocrisy surrounding the sex industry. Made from found materials, her assemblages are grotesque configurations, exaggerating rough-trade stereotypes of wig-wearing, melon-chested slappers contortedly stuffed into ill-fitting lingerie (in reality Tehran vice-girls wear hijabs and are identifiable through more covert and subtle signals). Fakhim farcically combines westernized hooker fashion with the codes of Islamic demur, torsos and heads made from cooking implements, adorned with make-shift veils and chastity belts.


 
  close window