Barbad Golshiri is Tehran’s most lusciously facial-haired man and artist.

It really doesn’t matter whether you see his gorgeous hair and beard (comparable to the likes of John Baldessari) or his art first. Either way you’ll be very impressed. Knowing about his own strong hair game, Barbad created the piece, What has Befallen us, Barbad in which he films himself cutting off his hair for mandatory military service - automatically inciting empathy in those witnessing the hair tragedy that has taken place.

Born in Tehran in 1982, Golshiri is the son of the famous writer, Houshang Golshiri. Barbad still works in Iran, but not under the same circumstances as his father. In Houshang’s hey day, he was almost murdered for protesting censorship and promoting human rights in a chain of murders appropriately called the Chain Murders of Iran from 1988 to 1998. In 1996, Houshang at the last minute decided not to attend a poetry conference in Armenia. His colleagues who did decide to attend boarded a bus that was almost driven off of a cliff by their driver at 2 o’clock in the morning. Luckily they all survived, but were warned not to tell anyone about what happened.

Barbad works under much chiller conditions these days. He attended The School of Art and Architecture, Azad University in Tehran and works with video, installation, digital media, and photography. His goal is to change Iranian culture without losing it, which seems like a contradiction, but crazier things have happened so we’re into it.