Manifesta purposely strives to keep its distance from what are often seen as the dominant centres of artistic production, instead seeking fresh and fertile terrain for the mapping of a new cultural topography.
Akbar Behkalam, IR
Abendmahl (The Lord’s Supper), 3 parts, 1978. Tempera on canvas 115 x 90 cm, 115 x 80 cm, 115 x 90 cm.
Akbar Behkalam’s painting exists within a dynamic tension between memory, political experience and experimentation. Drawing on his experiences of exile, revolution and violence in Iran, he has developed a visual language that weaves together historical events, personal biography and collective trauma.
His earlier body of work engages more directly with specific political themes, while his later paintings place greater emphasis on movement, colour and expressive, energetic gestures. Influences from Persian visual traditions are combined with elements of European modernism.
More than illustrating events, Behkalam’s pictures bring them together: places, figures and traces of history appear as vibrant visual forms in which questions of memory, belonging and artistic freedom are perpetuated.