Man, woman, Muslim, Christian... Mehdi-Georges Lahlou plays with the concepts of cultural identities and gender, to the point of dissolving ones in the others. His art is humorous, provocative, but always thought-provoking.
Born in 1983 in France, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou lives and works in Brussels and Paris. He produces performances and installations that deal with both cultural identities and gender, to the point of dissolving ones in the others. Indeed, if gender (as opposed to biological sex) is socially constructed, Mehdi-Georges catches it in the cultural fabric in which it was built—and twists it, with a certain sense of burlesque.
He is engaged in a kind of typology of clichés associated with the Arab-Muslim world, and attacks it head on (one of his favorite accessories is red stiletto heels). The «Arab head» of the photograph meets the vamp shoes: stigma + stigma = zero
* from Mehdi-Georges Lahlou’s website
Paradise carpet (wax sculpture), 2010
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