Arash Fakhim
Transcending between different disciplines, countries and cultures throughout his life, Arash Fakhim is the crossroad connecting all worlds. Fakhim’s work is always in flux and continuously asks ’what if’ when working with objects and materials in order to create a dialogue around everything we know. This fluidity results in a well choreographed visual cacophony which is bold, optimistic and open for discussion.
Hi Arash, Can you briefly introduce yourself?
My name is Arash Fakhim and I am a visual artist based in Germany and The Netherlands. I try to create dialogues through a visual language taken from everyday life to compose them in a (new) way and consider them as works. These considerations mostly revolve around materials and objects and somehow find their way back into my psyche. Whether it be in childhood memories, funny metaphors and witty little jokes transcended in materials and objects through a series of actions placed in a certain time. I try to devote myself to stay close to a humorous approach of looking at things and often find myself just asking ’ What if…? ‘ What if or what would a certain material look like. From this fluid state of ‘what if’, the transition between idea, question and material takes off to find themselves layered in between actions and, ultimately, hardened out to survive in the physical space.
Where did your relationship to art begin?
When I was a little rascal somewhere between the age of 1 and 3 I used to crawl under the table when my mom invited her friends over. I’m not sure if I should tell you guys this but back then I used to hide under the table and gently touch their legs because I liked the electrical and sticky feeling of my hands sliding up and down their pantyhoses. Some Freudian shit huh…. I know…. Anyways one could ask if this was my first sexual experience or wonder if this was the beginning of a curiosity towards the inappropriate and the need to investigate this. Yeah…. now that I think of it; maybe it's that same eery undertone which I’m interested in to showcase in my works. That precise feeling of unease of maybe being caught versus total fulfilment is rewarding and addictive! The outcome of it may not be persé the most valuable thing but rather the actions prior to the outcome. So yeah, I think my fantasy got triggered by the first time I got to touch a woman’s leg by the age of 3.
What does your creative process look like and how do you find your art’s voice?
You know, I believe the first steps are made as a youngster drawing all my favourite cartoon heroes or game characters and somewhere down the line losing myself in between them. This diaspora effect of coping between worlds by creating your own always felt really natural as I had to adapt to clashing cultures since the age of 5 when my parents moved from Iran to The Netherlands. My first real steps, I believe, were made while pursuing my dream of becoming a fashion photographer, finding out by accident that everything I wanted to make during sets could become a sculpture or something else. Here is the funny thing; when photographing these objects they become flat. They become photographs existing on my laptop. When printing them I always thought it was kinda funny to see them moving from my computer in the physical space, in magazines or on a wall even. The context of a photographed chair, sculpture, an object or even a model is different from this ‘real’ predecessor often called the copy. And this escaping or transcending from the flat surface has always remained an attraction in my works. As I often refer to my paintings more as coat racks instead of windows.
These painterly instalments seem to always have some sort off hanging systems or shelves. On the other hand, I like to occupy myself around the so-called complexities of working with found/discarded materials/objects and how to deal with them by making visual solutions. These solutions could also be called accidental-aesthetics since these solutions are a reaction to the found object or material but always prominent and straightforward without any sort of polishing. How does one deal with a found wooden panel that has holes in them? You come up with basic (in some cases brutal) solutions that provide a visual context to work with. I guess this is what people call loud because I refuse to aestheticise, polish or hide these characteristics that are material’s or the objects own. Perhaps we can state in this particular example that function in this way is followed by its form instead of the other way around but the medium is definitely the message in this age of the mass.
As an artist, what is your relation to technology? Do you reject or embrace it?
Technology and men have always fallen into each other since we have found out how to make things, instruct, sharpen our tools and make fire with it. To do this, we have equipped ourselves with things and functionalized them to objects. Example: In order to put a pin in a wall we must use a hammer and to use a hammer we must lift the object and hold a certain stance. In this momentum of using and functionalizing the (what seems to be at first glance a) submissive object, this hammer also seems to change my posture when in use. And to come to a better understanding of these fading divisions between the object - subject and their shifting powers I investigated these situations by mimicking some objects in their distilled and natural habitat. What is the relation between the cleaner and the mop, should the wet little cloth be sad? What does the cigarette think while it is laying on a table?
What are you working on right now?
Currently, I am working on a new series of paintings and some sculptures as always. But what’s specifically planned for the near future is to do a few residencies abroad, a solo show somewhere in 2019 and last but not least never to work with assholes ever again because they fuck up the creative flow and the drain the energy provided by the universe. :)
If you could spend the day with anyone from history to present, who would it be?
If I could spend the day with anyone from history to present is definitely without any doubt would be Pac! He comes directly to mind as I believe it was someone I could learn a lot from. We could talk about art, politics, poetry, life literally anything. He was such a visionary and a persona but above all a human being. Never ever forget about Tupac Amaru Shakur kids.
You said music is important to your creative process. What are the songs you play in your studio?
1- Tupac - Can’t C ME
2- Bronski Beat - Smalltown boy (12” version)
3- Kodak Black - Tunnel Vision
4- Andy Stott - Violence
5- Penny Penny - Remote
Anything on your 2019 wishlist?
I wish all of the tears shed in the world would become a salty flood that would dissolve all the bad so that no one would have to wittiness a broken heart ever again in 2019. But above all, I wish LOVE for everyone! Like a wise man once said; “If a man does not have sauce, then he is lost. But the same man can get lost in the sauce.” - G. Guwop Mane.
courtesy ARASH FAKHIM
interview ANIEK STROEKEN
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