SHIRIN FAKHIM (IRANIAN B. 1973)
Tehran Prostitutes
signed Shirin Fakhim in English and Persian and dated 2008
mixed media
life size
(2)

PROVENANCE
Saatchi collection, London

EXHIBITION HISTORY
Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East, Saatchi Gallery, London, 30 January - 9 May 2009

LITERATURE
Unveiled: New Art From The Middle East, Saatchi Gallery, London, 2009

Shirin Fakhim’s Tehran Prostitutes uses absurd and sympathetic humour to address issues surrounding the Persian working-girl circuit. In 2002 it was estimated that there were 100,000 prostitutes working in Tehran, despite Iran’s international reputation as a moralistic country with especially high standards placed on women. Many of these women are driven to prostitution because of abusive domestic situations and the poverty incurred from the massive loss of men during the war; in response to Iran’s strict religious laws, some even consider the profession as an act of civil protest.

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.