A centerpiece at O—Overgaden is a styrofoam and jesmonite reconstruction of the colossal granite arm of Pharaoh Amenhotep III with clenched fist, expropriated to the British Museum. To this tahir adds a manus fica, a historic hand gesture where the thumb is pushed between index and middle finger, today employed as explicit insult in contemporary gang culture—so that the arm seems to revolt against the looting oppressors.

Alongside this sculpture, a series of reliefs employs the artist’s roots in a dual fashion. On the one hand the panels formally reference the Assyrian friezes of Northern Iraq. On the other hand, their imagery is a combination of tahir’s private photo archive—a group of his male family members, a selfie, a caress between his father and brother—and found images of Arab men, including a large-scale frieze in which it is unclear if the figures are celebrating or fighting.

Resonating with the Pharaoh’s clenched fist, hands are a dominant motif: gesturing, praying, holding a phone, caressing. Carved in polyurethane foam with a surface imitating sandstone, the reliefs’ soft, almost vanishing contours ask for an intimate, close-up viewing, dissolving a stereotypical framing of the Arab male body as combative or aggressive, while pointing to a different, soft masculinity of mutuality and care.