Interview with the Iranian painter Akbar Behkalam (2013)
Interview with the Iranian painter Akbar Behkalam (2013)
Heimat ist, wo ich mich frei fühle.
[Home is where I feel free. (ed. trans.)]
Akbar Behkalam in an interview, August 2013
In August 2013, the Iranian painter Akbar Behkalam gave an interview in Berlin. In it the artist, who has been living in Berlin since 1976, described the political and intellectual climate in Iran that moved him to leave his home country. He talked about his ambivalent relationship with Iran saying that, while its rich cultural heritage has influenced his art, he rejects its politics.
In the interview he also talks about how he perceives home and tells the following anecdote: he once said to a journalist that, although he felt good in Germany, he would nevertheless like to die in his homeland. It was too cold in Germany, he added. The next day, a Turkish man approached him in the street and put his arms around him, saying he would also not like to die in Germany, as it is also too cold for him here. Behkalam already answered the question about where home is for him in 1987: “I used to think it was where I was born. But a lot has changed since then. At the moment I feel at home in Berlin.”
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