Ashkan Sahihi

• Pictures and Their Stories, New York: Fromm International 1992,. • The Vice Guide to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, ed. by Gavin McInnes, Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi, New York: Warner Books 2003. • Into Me / Out of Me, ed. by Klaus Biesenbach, New York: Hatje Cantz 2006. • Hossein Amirsadeghi: Istanbul Contrasts, London: Thames & Hudson 2010,. • Art & Patronage: The Middle East, ed. by Hossein Amirsadeghi, London: Thames & Hudson 2010 (principal photographer),. • Occupy – New York, Frankfurt: eine Bewegung die keine sein dürfte, ed. by Michele Sciurba, Frankfurt a. M.: B3 2012,. • Das Große Dummy-Buch, Zürich: Kein & Aber 2011,. • Die Berlinerin, Berlin: DISTANZ 2015,. • Beautiful Berlin Boys, Heidelberg: Kehrer 2016,. • The Operating Theatre, ed. by Hanno Steckel, Heidelberg: Kehrer 2017,. • New Queer Photography, ed. by Benjamin Wolbergs, Dortmund: Kettler 2020,. • The New York Years, Berlin: DISTANZ 2020,.

In his conceptual works, Sahihis main goal has been to drive forward public discourse on topics he believes have not provoked enough or the right kind of discussion: drugs, gender in the media, women in the military, etc. In his portraits, Sahihi often draws on familiar visual languages yet using them in contexts they are supposedly not suited for. Whilst constantly challenging the comfort level of both the viewer and the subject, Sahihi never removes himself from the line of fire; all of his work requires the artist to immerse himself in uncomfortable situations and challenge his own emotional fortitude. In the Face Series (18 images), latex-gloved hands manipulate the subjects' features. The Hypnosis Series comprises 8 portraits of hypnotized subjects each experiencing a single emotion, e. g. helplessness, withholding/anger, or regret. In 2006, Sahihi photographed himself in the homes and with the families of six ex-girlfriends and one ex-wife, imposing himself on the constellations that emerged after he had exited their lives. The Exes Series has been published in several magazines. For the most well-known of his early conceptual works, the Drug Series, he convinced 11 non–drug users to consume a particular drug, then took their portraits over the course of their trips. The series was born out of Sahihi's frustration with the hypocrisy of the political conversation about drugs in the United States. "By attempting to present an objective image of drug use, the artist addresses the cultural politics that allow our society to simultaneously glamorize the 'drug look' in fashion magazines and the entertainment industry and meanwhile turn a blind eye to the complicated, and vast, problem of drug abuse." Sahihi has exhibited this series at MoMA PS1 in New York City in 2001, the Berlin Academy of the Arts in 2005, and alongside his installation 100 Million in Ready Cash. Sahihi's photographic series also include Women of the IDF, portraits of female Israeli soldiers; Camp X-Ray Guantanamo Bay, black-and-white landscapes of barbed wire and watch towers; the Cum Series that references US corporate IDs and yearbook photography to comment on the pornografization of everyday culture; the Armpit Series; and the Kiss Series, in which the artist photographed himself kissing 18 women and men of various ethnicities. Sahihi's most extensive work to date is the study Die Berlinerin, inspired by Clifford Geertz' method of thick description. Using search categories based on age, profession, life plan, social background, etc. he made contact with a wide variety of women living temporarily or permanently in Berlin. Meeting them in settings chosen by the models themselves, Sahihi created a series of 375 portraits that was on display alongside corresponding questionnaires in the Galerie im Körnerpark and Springer Gallery in autumn and winter 2015–2016. The complete series was published by DISTANZ. Living in Berlin since 2013, "he encountered young, gay men that struck him as oddly familiar. They reminded him of New York in the 1980s, and of the search for new forms of identity. It seemed as if Berlin of the 2010s had replaced the old New York as the city of dreams." Remembering the old New York, a city marked by creativity and freedom but also hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic that diminished "the creative community by what seemed like half of its most brilliant talents and ravaging its creative power," Sahihi created a series of nude photographs of the Beautiful Berlin Boys. The book was accompanied by an exhibition at Galerie Kehrer in Berlin. A selection of the portraits was reprinted in Benjamin Wolbergs' volume New Queer Photography, published by Kettler in 2020. The fascination with Barbara Hepworth's Hospital Drawings he shares with sports surgeon Hanno Steckel led to another series published by Kehrer. Sahihi's black and white photographs follow Steckel into The Operating Theatre, capturing the rhythmic play of hands and movements, thus tracing the similarities between artistic and surgical craftsmanship. In May 2019, Sahihi reenacted Leonardo da Vinci's famous Last Supper with friends and neighbors from Neuköllns Weserstraße neighborhood.