Mehdi-Georges Lahlou

In the top image of this diptych, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou wears red stiletto shoes with prayer beads tied around his ankle, and in the bottom image he dons a taqiyah, a skullcap worn by Muslim men for religious or cultural reasons. Mehdi-Georges was born in France to a French Roman Catholic mother and a Moroccan Muslim father. His work often explores his hybrid identity, freely employing signifiers of Catholicism and Islam. His use of heels in this image can also be read as a doubled critique of the Western hypersexualization of the Arab body and the gendered politics of some understandings of Islam, while also being autobiographical: the shoes reference his mother being a flamenco dancer and the beads once belonged to his father.

–Conor Moynihan, assistant curator of prints, drawings, and photographs