Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Jr. ( ur, , sd, ذُوالفِقّارعلِي ڀُٽو; born 1 August 1990), is a Pakistani visual artist, performance artist and curator. He is a member of the prominent political

Bhutto family The Bhutto family ( ur, بھُٹو خاندان; sd, ڀُٽو خاندان) is a prominent political family and among the most powerful families in Pakistan, based in the Pakistani province of Sindh. The Bhuttos have played a prominent role in Pak ...

, and is the grandson of former President and Prime Minister of Pakistan, and his namesake,

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Zulfikar (or Zulfiqar) Ali Bhutto ( ur, , sd, ذوالفقار علي ڀٽو; 5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979), also known as Quaid-e-Awam ("the People's Leader"), was a Pakistani barrister, politician and Politician, statesman who served as ...

. He is younger brother of

Fatima Bhutto Fatima Bhutto ( ur, ; , born 29 May 1982) is a Pakistani writer and columnist. Born in Kabul, she is the daughter of politician Murtaza Bhutto, sister of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Jr, niece of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and grand ...

and he is related to

Benazir Bhutto Benazir Bhutto ( ur, بینظیر بُھٹو; sd, بينظير ڀُٽو; Urdu ; 21 June 1953 – 27 December 2007) was a Pakistani politician who served as the 11th and 13th prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 t ...

and

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari Bilawal Bhutto Zardari ( ur, بلاول بھٹو زرداری; born 21 September 1988) is a Pakistani politician who is serving as the 37th Minister of Foreign Affairs, in office since 27 April 2022. He became the chairman of Pakistan Peopl ...

through his father's side. He has lived and worked in

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

, Pakistan and

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Early life and career

Bhutto was born on 1 August 1990 into the

Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

. He is the son of

Murtaza Bhutto Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto (; 18 September 1954 – 20 September 1996) was a Pakistani politician and leader of al-Zulfiqar, a Pakistani left-wing militant organization. The son of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, he earne ...

, a politician who was assassinated when he was six years old, and

Ghinwa Bhutto Ghinwa Bhutto ( ur, غنویٰ بھٹو, sd, غنوا ڀٽو, ar, غنوة بوتو; born Ghinwa Itaoui) is a Lebanese-Pakistani politician and the chairperson of Pakistan Peoples Party (Shaheed Bhutto). She is the widow of Murtaza Bhutto, and the ...

, who leads the Pakistan Peoples Party of Shaheed Bhutto. He has a half-sister,

, from his father's first marriage. His is of Pakistani descent from his father and has Lebanese ancestry from his mother's side. Bhutto was named after his grandfather

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Zulfikar (or Zulfiqar) Ali Bhutto ( ur, , sd, ذوالفقار علي ڀٽو; 5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979), also known as Quaid-e-Awam ("the People's Leader"), was a Pakistani barrister, politician and statesman who served as the fourth ...

, the former

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

and

President of Pakistan The president of Pakistan ( ur, , translit=s̤adr-i Pākiṣṭān), officially the President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is the ceremonial head of state of Pakistan and the commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Armed Forces. His grandmother,

Nusrat Bhutto ''Begum'' Nusrat Bhutto (; sd, نصرت ڀٽو; ur, ; born as Nusrat Ispahani; 23 March 1929 – 23 October 2011) was an Iranian-Pakistani public figure of Kurdish origin, who served as spouse of the Prime Minister of Pakistan between 1971 unti ...

, is of Iranian-Kurdish descent. The former Prime Minister of Pakistan,

is his paternal aunt, and her husband and former President of Pakistan,

Asif Ali Zardari Asif Ali Zardari ( ur, ; sd, ; born 26 July 1955) is a Pakistani politician who is the president of Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians and was the co-chairperson of Pakistan People's Party. He served as the 11th president of Pakistan ...

, is his uncle-by-marriage, while his father's brother,

Shahnawaz Bhutto Shahnawaz Bhutto (November 21, 1958 – July 18, 1985; Sindhi: شاھنواز ڀٽو) was the son of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the former President and Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1971 to 1977 and Begum Nusrat Bhutto, who was of Iranian Kurdish ...

, is his uncle. The politician,

, is his first cousin. Bhutto received his

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

degree in 2016 from the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

. He has two undergraduate degrees from the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

. Bhutto has worked on creative projects such as ''Mussalmaan Musclemen'' (2017), ''The Third Muslim: Queer and Trans Muslim Narratives of Resistance and Resilience'' (2018), ''The Alif Series'' (2019), and ''Tomorrow We Inherit the Earth'' (2019). In 2015, he exhibited an artworks titled ‘The Shrine’, which dealt with the subject of marginalised minorities in Pakistan through

photo manipulation Photograph manipulation involves the transformation or alteration of a photograph using various methods and techniques to achieve desired results. Some photograph manipulations are considered to be skillful artwork, while others are consider ...

portraiture A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this re ...

and

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

. Artist and designer

Hushidar Mortezaie Hushidar "Hushi" Mortezaie (born 1972) is an Iranian-born American fashion designer, artist, collagist, and graphic designer. He co-founded the fashion label ''Michael and Hushi.'' Mortezaie is best known for his over-the-top Persian-aesthetic ...

has worked with Bhutto and designed some of his performance costumes. In July 2022, he withdrew his participation from the

Goethe Institute The Goethe-Institut (, GI, en, Goethe Institute) is a non-profit German cultural association operational worldwide with 159 institutes, promoting the study of the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange and ...

Film Fest in solidarity with

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

, as Palestinian activist Mohammed El-Kurd was not invited. Additionally, writer

Mohammed Hanif Mohammed Hanif (born November 1964) is a British Pakistani writer and journalist who writes a monthly opinion piece in ''The New York Times.'' Hanif is the author of the critically acclaimed book ''A Case of Exploding Mangoes'', which was long ...

withdrew from the Goethe Institute conference.

Personal life

Bhutto currently lives in Karachi, Pakistan and belongs to the

LGBTQ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

community, and identifies himself as

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali Living people 1991 births 21st-century Pakistani male artists Pakistani performance artists Pakistani people of Iranian descent Pakistani people of Kurdish descent Pakistani people of Lebanese descent Queer men Queer artists LGBT Muslims San Francisco Art Institute alumni Pakistani LGBT artists Bhutto family Pakistani emigrants to the United States Asian-American drag queens Pakistani drag queens American performance artists American people of Lebanese descent American Muslims People with acquired American citizenship Alumni of the University of Edinburgh