‘Arguably the first artwork from a Middle Eastern context to engage with transgender identity’ (Omar Kholeif, Art Forum, April 2017), Le Chevalier d’Eon (1978) is a seminal, multi-media installation comprising video, paintings, polaroids and photographs.

The work is an expansive portrait of a man who decided he wanted to live as a woman. Referencing the Chevalier d’Eon, a famous 18th century French diplomat, soldier and spy, of ambiguous gender, Yalter’s friend transforms himself into a woman on screen, putting on jewelry and female clothes; large, teardrop earrings and fishnet stockings. It is a heightened dramatization of gender transition, underscored by an accompanying soundtrack of Baroque music by Domenico Scarlatti.