1. Alireza Shojaian is an Iranian-born French painter and visual activist.
12 Facts About Alireza Shojaian
1. 2.
Alireza Shojaian obtained his bachelor's degree in fine arts and painting from the Islamic Azad University in 2014.
3.
Alireza Shojaian was not allowed to complete his master's degree on account of his having chosen Queer Art as the subject of his thesis and final project.
4.
Alireza Shojaian kept his work hidden throughout his university years and did not exhibit in Iran.
5.
The sanctions against Iran prevented Alireza Shojaian from moving to the United States and Europe; he met a Lebanese patron in Iran who encouraged him to move to Beirut.
6.
Alireza Shojaian settled in the more liberal Beirut in February 2017, whereupon he was able to develop his work and held two solo exhibitions in 2017 and 2018.
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Alireza Shojaian was invited by the French embassy in Lebanon to participate in a project for the Academie des beaux-arts, following which he moved to Paris.
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Alireza Shojaian depicts his subjects nude or semi-nude in intimate and vulnerable positions.
9.
Alireza Shojaian did not feel safe in Iran, where un-closeted gay persons suffer from state-sponsored oppression and face execution.
10.
In 2017, after traveling to Lebanon, Alireza Shojaian collaborated with Lebanese queer bellydancer and artist Khansa in a series of sensual and controversial nude portraits exhibited in Beirut under the title of Sweet Blasphemy.
11.
One of Alireza Shojaian's better known pieces depicts the band Mashrou' Leila's frontman Hamed Sinno pinching the nipple of Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god of funerary rites.
12.
Alireza Shojaian painted the piece after the September 22,2017 Mashrou' Leila concert in Cairo, during which the pride flag was flown.