Hayv Kahraman: How Iraqi Are You?
Large scale paintings of Kabuki like figures on raw linen draw one into Jack Shainman Gallery’s second solo exhibition by Hayv Kahraman titled How Iraqi Are You? Inspired by 12th century Arabic illuminated manuscripts of daily life in Iraq, these meticulously rendered vignettes reference Kahraman’s childhood in Baghdad, but more importantly her life as an Iraqi refugee in Sweden and its concomitant questions of identity and heritage.
The notion of foreignness, or “otherness,” as commonly defined by post-colonial theorists, is addressed through Kahraman’s use of language, puns, and double entendres to present a private, hidden world of secrecy, anxiety, and perceptions of “othering.” Arabic texts on these minimalist paintings of alabaster dolls display close associations between words that look similar, but are in fact diversely opposed, to highlight her experiences. For instance in, Swedish Class, 2014, the artist translates the text on the painting as, “The teacher asked me to describe my home in Baghdad so I wrote “vihade horor I trädgården.” Horor means prostitutes in the Swedish language while hönor means chickens.” In an image in which the teacher barely holds up a chicken with utter dismay, while the disengaged pupils look on, Kahraman effectively conveys her feelings as the unwelcomed dead chicken. By using the words “horor” and “honor” she also playfully introduces the troubling notion of sexuality and questions of her own identity in a country that is much less conventional than her own.
Similarly in Ummo-dach, 2015, expressed as “a hand gesture to indicate ignorance” that is “commonly used in Swedish schools among children of all ethnicities” Kahraman relates the signal of exclusion. Through her ceremonial but deeply compelling repertoire of women that appear to be a combination of Japanese Kabuki and Mannerist figures, Kahraman recreates disturbing personal experiences while maintaining a clear distance from the action.
Her deliberate methodology of using characters that reference a different time and era set against bare backdrops, allows Kahraman to create what might resemble the settings of make-believe morality plays. To that extent, her concern with female virtuosity and vices recurs in a number of paintings and enables her to present different scenarios. In Person nummer, 2015, the use of a double entendre in the Arabic text on the painting effectively captures her situation of playacting the bad girl. Two poker-faced women hold up their dresses to reveal their uncovered vaginas. The text reads, “when you arrive to Sweden you are given a personal identity number ‘person nummer.’ That is pronounced ‘peshoon nummer.’ In the Iraqi dialect peshoon means vagina.”
The struggle with identity and sexuality, and the conflict between what is expected of her and what might be can be seen in Barboug, 2014, translated as “a term to denigrate women.” In the painting, two women, one complacent and suppliant, while the other reveals a breast in an act of defiance showcases the situation with dramatic verve.
Kahraman’s paintings navigate disturbing territory with enormous aplomb. Heavy subject matter is communicated with a firm yet lighthearted hand. Never straying from her heritage of Islamic miniature painting, the vibrant geometrical gowns combined with her theatrical but understated cast pack in so much with so little, and ring true from a distance.
Bansie Vasvani is an art critic based in New York City.
Photo Credit: © Hayv Kahraman. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.