Sohrab Kashani


Sohrab Kashani is an Iranian artist and contemporary art curator.
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Work as artist

''Super Sohrab'' (2009–present)

Super Sohrab, Kashani’s alter-ego is a superhero who utilises satire and failure in their attempts to navigate the everyday challenges of daily life. Through the documentation of some of their own life events and their own failures, Super Sohrab addresses local and global socio-political problems. Super Sohrab's work often comprises performative interventions presented in photographs, videos, comics, text, and other formats. Super Sohrab also arm-wrestles in public to challenge and discuss power dynamics and sets up lifting workshops to practice resilience and resistance.

''The Other Apartment'' (2019–present)

The Other Apartment is a collaborative project between Kashani and Pittsburgh-based artist Jon Rubin that initially occurred simultaneously in Kashani's apartment in Tehran and an exact replica of that apartment and all of its contents at the Mattress Factory museum in Pittsburgh, U.S. Using detailed photographs from Kashani, the artists worked with a team of fabricators to meticulously recreate his Tehran apartment's facade, interior architecture, and all of his personal possessions. From his soap dish to his furniture, everything in The Other Apartment was purchased, altered, or entirely fabricated to replicate what existed in Kashani's apartment. Located within The Other Apartment, in both Tehran and Pittsburgh, was Sazmanab, Kashani's contemporary art space. Sazmanab produced programs where every object, video, and performance that happened in one space was meticulously duplicated for the other.

''Darookhaneh Apotheke Pharmacy'' (2022/2024)

Darookhaneh Apotheke Pharmacy is a conversation space in the form of an Iranian pharmacy run by Kashani and German-born artist Anahita Razmi since 2022. Its spatial set-up comprises an installation filled with copies of Iranian pharmaceuticals and medication packages. Emerging in the aftermath of a global pandemic and a period of shared devastation, during which concerns about the unequal distribution of vaccines became pressing issues, Darookhaneh Apotheke Pharmacy makes a link to the Iranian concept of "darookhaneh" and "khaneh", testing out what it can enable for hybrid artistic work during crisis. Transcultural connections, trade infrastructures, legal obstacles, and inequalities in medicine distribution between the Global North and the Global South are some of the topics echoed in this space, which furthermore aims to look at what artistic strategies of appropriation and copying can do for rethinking and shifting colonial power dynamics. Bringing together selected speakers, collaborators, and the public, Darookhaneh Apotheke Pharmacy fosters discussions and conversations on these critical topics and their larger contexts.

Work as curator

''Sazmanab'' (2008–present)

Sazmanab is a curatorial platform by Kashani which he originally started as an artist-run space and residency program in Tehran in 2008. From 2008 to 2014, Sazmanab was located in an apartment in the Sadeghiyeh district of Tehran and later in 2014 was relocated to an old building on Khaghani street near Darvaze Dolat in downtown Tehran. Since 2008, Sazmanab has set up more than hundred events and exhibitions at its venues and off-site. Sazmanab also holds talks and presentations at universities, museums, and institutions and takes part in international panels, seminars, and forums.

Exhibitions curated

This series of videos was later screened in Tehran, at the Pejman Foundation Kandovan site.