Akbar Behkalam

Biography

Akbar Behkalam was born in Tabriz in 1944, the capital of the Iranian province East Azerbaijan. From 1961 until 1964 he studied art at Tabriz art school. After his military service he moved to Istanbul, where he enrolled at the Mimar Sinan University in Fine Arts and became the student of professor Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu.

From 1972 until 1974 he lived in different European cities, including Paris, Frankfurt, Rome and Berlin. In 1974 he went back to Iran, to teach at the Tabriz art school. Since 1976, Behkalam has lived in Berlin and as of 1989 he has a studio in Brandenburg.

He is married and has two children.

Art

Akbar Behkalam's works often deal with political subjects. His early works are influenced by the New European Realism, in a symbiosis with Persian miniature painting. His later works, up to present time can be described as abstract-expressive. A focal point of his works is the depiction of the formation and choreography of mass movements.

One recurring theme in his works is the turbulent history of his home country Iran: the series "Persepolis" (1977–1979) deals with old Persian iconography, that is confronted with the depiction of the execution squads of the Shah-regime. In the eighties he produced the series "Justice in Allah's Name", that has the religiously legitimized human rights violations of the Islamic Republic as its central theme.

From 1984-1986 Behkalam did extensive research on the German revolution of 1848 and produced several large scale paintings on that subject that were presented in his solo exhibition at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin in 1986.

Behkalam has shown his works in many exhibitions in Europe, Asia and North and South America. In 2009 he has been the winner of the Tashkent Biennial in Uzbekistan.

Solo exhibitions (selection)

Group exhibitions (selection)