Princess Hijab

Princess Hijab is an anonymous street artist working primarily in Paris. Her art centres on veiling the main characters on subway advertisements using black paint.

Anonymity

Few facts are known about her except that she was born in 1988, that much of her known work has appeared in metro stations across Paris, and that she was the founder of the hijab-ad collective, a movement involving artists from across France.”

Work

Princess Hijab is recognized as the founder of “hijabism”, a movement based on the veiling, or “hijabizing” of advertising images. She is widely recognized for her iconic images of veiled girls ,boys and couple on advertising posters, which reference contemporary culture, celebrity culture and the world of fashion. Her humour attempts to expose contradictions inherent in mainstream culture.

One of her more celebrated works, “Diam’s Ma France à Moi”, is the portrait of the famous French rapper Diam's, covered with a veil using a black marker pen. Notoriously, the hijabised version of the poster appeared in Paris several years before Diams was first spotted wearing the hijab following her conversion to Islam. The original poster is a re-interpretation of a photograph by David LaChapelle

Other famous works by Princess Hijab include the “Lafayette” series, depicting a model promoting the French department store Galeries Lafayette, wearing a blue, white and red striped top and a black bandana over her mouth, and the “Dolche” series, a series of Dolce & Gabbana adverts representing male models hijabised by the artist.

Although she is mostly known for her street-based art, her body of work encompasses video, spoken word and text-based works, computer based animations , clothing and accessories, as well as live performance. Her online presence is well developed, with many works created especially for the internet.

Despite the controversy surrounding her work, Princess Hijab insists that she is not involved in any political or religious lobbies and has no links with the advertising industry: “She [Princess Hijab] is the leader of an artistic fight, nothing else”.

Famous phrases by the artist

• “Princess Hijab knows that L'Oréal and Dark & Lovely have been killing her little by little. She feels that the veil is no longer that white. She feels contaminated. When she was a teen, she heard about movements such as Adbusters; but since 9/11, things have changed.”
• “Princess Hijab will go on, veiled and alone, forever asserting her physical and mental integrity. By day, she wears a white veil, symbol of purity. By night, her black veil is the expression of her vengeful fight for a cause.”
• “Guerrilla art is innocent and criminal, ancient and dystopian, intimate and political. I chose the veil because it does what art should do: It challenges, it frightens, and it re-imagines
• “My work supports right-wing radicalism like Taxi Driver support cabbies. I’m using the hijab for myself.”

Controversy

Criticism from Western media sometimes expresses hostility towards the artist for veiling of naked female models, while Muslim collectives have expressed concern over the fact that the artist continues to leave some parts of the female bodies uncovered.

External links

• Blog
• "Street Art: The Ephemeral Rebellion", by Anne Bürger and Benjamin Cantu, screened on Arte TV
• "Street Art Die vergängliche Rebellion", by Anne Bürger and Benjamin Cantu, screened on ARD