A Question of Knowledge

Tim Smith-Laing talks to Rasheed Araeen about six decades of art making, writing and publishing

104 105 Born in pre-partition Pakistan in 1935, as Iqbal and literary writers like Saadat Rasheed Araeen is a -based artist who Hasan Manto, as well as films – at first is now recognized as one of the most impor- Previous page left mostly from Bollywood but, in the early tant voices in postwar British art. Growing In the Midst of Darkness I, 1950s, Hollywood and European movies up in , he trained as a civil engineer 2012–13, emulsion on canvas, arrived. The educated class dressed like 1.1 × 1.4 m before moving to Paris and then London, in Westerners and there was a community 1964, to pursue a career as a painter. Shifting Previous page right of Parsis and Catholics who spoke English Summer Blue, his energies towards sculpture, he became 1985–2014, paint on wood, all the time. a pioneer of minimalist and participatory art, 77 × 56 × 15 cm TSL In keeping with Karachi’s technological before expanding his practice to incorpo- modernity, you trained as a civil 1 rate land art, performance, photography and 7b, 1962, engineer. At what point did the idea of mixed-media pieces that sought to challenge felt pen on paper, art begin to take over? 29 × 40 cm the racism of the British art world. His work, RA In the late 1950s. The first works that led which can be found in significant collections 2 me to believe I could do something signif- across the world, will be honoured in a major Burning Bicycle Tyres, icant were Dancing Bodies (1959–61), My 1959, photographic prints on paper, touring retrospective in 2017, beginning at each: 46 × 61 cm First Sculpture (1959) and Burning Bicycle Eindhoven’s Van Abbemuseum. Tyres (1959). I was walking home and saw Courtesy Also a curator and theorist, Araeen has previous pages & 1 the artist a twisted piece of metal lying in the street. long been an essential voice in critical engage- and Grosvenor Gallery, London • I took it home, cleaned it and put it on the ments with race and art. In addition to 2 the artist and Aicon Gallery, table. My mother walked in and asked: curating the influential exhibitions ‘Essential New York ‘What is this dirty thing?’ I said: ‘This Black Art’ (Chisenhale Gallery, London, 1988) is a sculpture.’ And that’s how I made and ‘The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in My First Sculpture. Both these works are Postwar Britain’ (, London, understand the full significance of art related to a piece I had already begun 1989), he founded the critical journals Black as a profession. to develop in 1959, whose curvilinear Phoenix (1978–79) and Third Text (1987– TSL Was that through exposure to art in form was unique not only in the context ongoing). He has also written about his own museums in Karachi? of art in Pakistan but also mainstream artistic journey in Making Myself Visible RA There were no art museums in Karachi at modernism: a kind of double helix. Their (1984) and Art Beyond Art: Ecoaesthetics: that time. It was because I came across the relationship is, however, very complex, A Manifesto for the 21st Century (2010). work of people who were called ‘artists’. conceptually. I have written about them I met Araeen, a generous and hospitable My first encounter with a professional art- in detail in my book Art Beyond Art. interviewee, at his studio in north London to ist was in 1950, when I met S.M. Sultan; TSL In 1964, you decided to move to Paris. discuss the different facets of his past, present he made me understand that art wasn’t What took you there? and future. only copying. Until then, all I did was RA I was unhappy about the art being made make copies, or draw portraits of famous in Karachi, which was mainly deriva- TIM SMITH-LAING people, such as the founder of Pakistan, tive of Western art. I knew I wanted to How did you first become interested in art? Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and poets like pursue something different. I had a show RASHEED ARAEEN Muhammad Iqbal. I became aware of in 1963 at the Arts Council of Pakistan When I was about seven years old, living modernity, particularly the work of Frank Gallery in Karachi, which was a complete in a small town in Balochistan, around Lloyd Wright, by browsing through failure. So, I decided I should move to 100 kilometres from Karachi, my mother books at the United States Information Europe; Paris was my romantic dream. asked me to help her draw flowers Service Library; I realized that modern- TSL How long did you stay there? on a sheet of linen so that she could ism represented the progress we badly RA One month. I hadn’t learned French and embroider it. That, for me, was the needed in Pakistan. Cultural modernity I didn’t have the financial resources to beginning of my interest in art. It wasn’t came with Western culture, but also in sustain myself. Also, I didn’t see any- until the mid-1950s that I began to the form of Urdu literature, via poets such thing impressive: the galleries were full of American pop art. A friend in London said: ‘Come to London, you could get a job.’ I have been living here ever since. TSL But you made moves to establish yourself in the art world in London? RA I brought eight paintings with me, in the hope that I would forge a career. The Village was an arts club owned, I think, by the opera singer Peter Pears – the boyfriend of the composer Benjamin Britten. They had a foyer in which they occasionally exhibited paintings. The first time I went there, they were showing the work of Francis Souza. They offered me an exhibition at the end of 1965; but I became so preoccupied with the idea of modern sculpture that I thought showing my painting might distract me from my new interest. So, I cancelled it; I only exhibited these paintings for the first time in Sharjah in 2014. TSL You had started working again as an engineer by then. Did the economic freedom of having a job facilitate your commitment to doing what you 1 wanted as an artist?

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RA I don’t know if I would put it that way. four cubes and, when I tried to put them ‘I saw a twisted piece of Although, with hindsight, I think it together, I discovered that I could make helped me to understand what the sculp- more than one arrangement. With this metal lying in the street. tor Anthony Caro was doing: he was also came the realization that if you break the a trained engineer, and he was picking up rigidity of fixed symmetrical structure, it I took it home, cleaned fragments from engineering and putting could lead to a movement towards infinity. it and put it on the table. them together to make sculpture. And so I developed the idea of public par- TSL And it was through engineering ticipation: I would provide the public with that you found your own minimalist a symmetrical structure that they could My mother walked in sculptural idiom. dismantle and rearrange as they wished. RA Yes, with Sculpture No. 1 and Sculpture TSL In a March 2008 interview with and asked: “What is this No. 2 (both conceived in 1965). Richard Dyer, in Wasafiri, you described TSL Your other landmark work from Zero to Infinity’s participatory nature dirty thing?” I said: this time is your interactive sculpture, as being ‘allegorical’ of ‘human equality Zero to Infinity (1968), a 2003 and collectivity’. Does it mark the point “This is a sculpture”.’ version of which is now in the where political concerns surface in Tate collection. Were you aware of your work? RASHEED ARAEEN people like Groupe de Recherche RA I was always involved in political activity, d’Art Visuel, who were experimenting but I kept it separate from art. In 1967, with participatory sculpture and I was part of the group that campaigned performances at the same time? against the Greek junta and the Vietnam RA I had some idea. I came to know War, but I didn’t see a connection between something about them through politics and art. I thought art was art and Signals Gallery in London, which was its function was to be beautiful. run by David Medalla. From 1965, TSL In the early 1970s, however, you joined I became preoccupied with geometry the Black Panthers and Artists for and symmetry in sculpture. In 1968, Democracy and your work became I was constructing a work comprised of directly concerned with race and

FRIEZE NO. 183 NOVEMBER • DECEMBER 2016 107 racism. In 1973, you exhibited For writing was also conceived as an artwork: Oluwale, a semi-documentary piece I call it textual art. about the Nigerian immigrant David TSL As a curator and art historian, Oluwale, who drowned in 1969 after you’ve also been fighting to re-insert being systematically harassed by Leeds significant Afro-Asian artists into art City police. Why did the division history. After ‘Essential Black Art’, between politics and art crumble you went on to curate ‘The Other for you? Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Postwar 1 & 2 Black Phoenix Nos. 3 & 2, RA I read about Oluwale’s death in 1971, and Britain’ at the Hayward Gallery 1978–79 it shocked and moved me so much that (1989), which grouped together artists I decided to do a work dedicated to him. you believed played a significant role 3 Opus F 2, 2016, However, my politicization really hap- in the development of postwar art. acrylic on canvas, pened after I won a John Moores Prize RA I came to the realization that my struggle 1.6 × 1.6 m in 1969: I thought I had made it and my wasn’t just my struggle. Everyone who Courtesy friends assumed it would then be easy came from Africa and Asia must have 1, 2 & 3 the artist and for me to get gallery representation. In gone through the same kinds of experi- Aicon Gallery, fact, some galleries were interested in my ences as I did. I was researching what New York work, but they wouldn’t exhibit it. One has been written about them and I was told me: ‘We love your work, but we only shocked. These artists did their work show British and American artists.’ So, within the context of mainstream mod- something was wrong. I had friends who ernism – some of them were on the were aware of the relationship between forefront of the avant-garde in the 1960s art and politics – who were involved in – but they weren’t recognized. For exam- the anti-racist, anti-imperialist struggles ple, the sexuality in the work of artists – and I began meeting with them in a pub such as Souza and Avinash Chandra was to talk about the role of art in this. attributed not to their own experiences, TSL You also started producing essays but to India – and their modernism articulating your thoughts about art was totally ignored. I could find no art- and imperialism around this time. historical publication in which they were You founded Black Phoenix in 1978, mentioned. Once I recognized the prob- which in 1987 went on to become Third lem, I realized it was a collective one, and Text – one of the foremost journals it had to be dealt with collectively. focused on issues around art and TSL Do you think the situation has postcolonialism – and it was an equally improved? important strand of your career. What RA Not much. The issue was misunderstood led you to pursue the theoretical aspects and misrepresented. The purpose of beyond the gallery and studio? ‘The Other Story’ was to show what was RA I realized there were things that I had to missing from the mainstream history of express through a verbal language rather British art. But, of course, it was ignored than a visual one, so I began to write. at the time because British institutions TSL Who were you reading at the time? then were not ready to change. It was RA I read Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the a problem of knowledge missing from Earth (1961), among other books by him, the discourse and missing from our as well as Amílcar Cabral, Paulo Freire, consciousness of history. I have been Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, a bit of struggling for the last 15 years to inte- Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx. At first, grate that material within mainstream I didn’t read art magazines: it was only British art history. after I won the John Moores Prize that TSL And, of course, this is what has 1 I began to read Studio International. inspired your ongoing project since TSL Running throughout your art and 2000, The Whole Story: Art in writing practices, as well as in your Postwar Britain. curatorial activities in the late 1980s, RA Yes, it’s for an inclusive art history. But is a major concern with the idea of there has been resistance to it from the ‘blackness’. By the time you curated establishment – in the form of evasions, ‘Essential Black Art’ at London’s excuses and cover-ups. Once done, it will Chisenhale Gallery in 1988, your be a model for future art history. There notion of ‘black’, alongside ‘Afro- is an awareness now that we are missing Asian’, appears finely tuned, both as something. I’ve talked to many people an identity and an artistic category. in Europe who have tried to produce an What was the thinking behind your inclusive art history, but they have failed elaborations on that terminology? because they don’t have the awareness RA In the 1970s, I was already involved in required for that kind of work. the kind of art that referred to racism, TSL In the catalogue for The Essential imperialism and institutional domina- Black Art (1988) you wrote that ‘the tion, but I never called it ‘black art’. interests of art and community have I was experimenting in different forms: become synonymous’ and that ‘mere making collages, doing performances solidarity within the community or (such as Paki Bastard, 1977), issuing […] with political struggle can deprive statements and writing Preliminary Notes art of its cognitive value’. In terms of for a Black Manifesto (1978), at the end community struggle, I wanted to ask of which I invited readers to respond to you what you think politically and/ my statements with the idea that I would or artistically of identity politics as it’s 2 eventually publish a book of them. My being played out now.

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‘I came to the realization that my struggle wasn’t just my struggle. Everyone who came from Africa and Asia must have gone through the same kinds of experiences.’

RASHEED ARAEEN

109 RA The word ‘political’ within the art RA I believe we have to get rid of the idea context creates a lot of confusion. of individual artists, bourgeois artists. It demands a commitment that goes I believe the root of creativity is in peas- beyond making art, and that’s the ant culture. The bourgeois artist takes problem. Artists should make art. Art away ideas created by a peasant culture cannot solve a political problem – it 1 and transforms them – makes them more can only reflect it. If there is a political One Summer Afternoon, ‘sophisticated’. If you take into consid- 1968, six painted wooden obstacle to art then we have to remove constructions, dimensions variable eration what is happening to the world it. That’s what I have been doing in terms of ecology, we have been taking 2 for the last 40 years. But, having failed Piaray Lal, everything from the Earth without giv- to remove the obstacle, I’ve returned 1970, paint on wood, ing anything back. The Earth has been to making art which is not explicitly 86 × 31 × 16 cm deprived of its nourishment. And we – political. With what is happening Courtesy those who live in cities – cannot solve this. in the world today, however, particu- 1 & 2 the artist and Grosvenor So, my point is that we have to develop larly after the invasion of Iraq, I have Gallery, London rural culture and resuscitate what is miss- to make so-called political art. I have ing from it. People run away from villages done a body of work, but I have kept it to live in the city because they lack that hidden. It is too disturbing. which human desire demands – but desire TSL You reflected on the first Gulf War should be fulfilled within the rural context. in a number of pieces from the 1990s. We have to get away from the idea that the Do you intend to show this new body RA This work may not appear to be political, city should remain the centre of knowl- of political work at some point? but it is, because it raises questions edge, creativity, innovation or desire. RA I do, but first I need to strengthen my about the history of knowledge. What TSL And you have plans to start ground. You see, I’m known all over is it? Islamic or modern? If both, can bringing about that kind of change, the world as a writer, not as an artist. we have a modern art history that rec- in and beyond art? When I showed my work two years ognizes the relationship between the RA I don’t have a full answer. One of ago at the Sharjah Art Foundation abstract geometry of Islamic art’s golden my articles in Art Beyond Art is titled in the UAE, people were baffled: they period (900–1300) and the geometric ‘Cosmoruralism’. In the future, there didn’t know I was an artist. abstraction of the 20th century? It will be less food because there will be TSL If that were the case, I feel like the is both a philosophical and theoretical less fresh water, particularly in Africa. situation has changed now. question that Eurocentric art history Desalination plants should be built all RA There is substantial interest in my cannot answer. over the world and run on solar energy. work in New York, but not in the UK. TSL In 2010, you published Art Beyond We need what is cyclic: sea water that I haven’t exhibited my new work Art. In the title essay, you talk about becomes fresh water via energy from the here yet. needing to go beyond the artist’s sun that will fertilize the earth. I see it as TSL Did your show ‘Geometry and ‘narcissistic ego’ and to move towards an art work, involving innovation, crea- Symmetry’, at Aicon Gallery in New enhancing ‘not only its own creative tivity and productivity. My plan is to buy York in September, signal a return in potential but also the collective life of some land in Balochistan, in Pakistan, method, materials and aesthetics to Earth’s inhabitants’. Is this pointing to and set up a land-based project that local your pre-political, minimalist work? new participatory projects? people will run collectively.

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110 FRIEZE NO. 183 NOVEMBER • DECEMBER 2016 ‘We have to get away from the idea that the city should remain the centre of knowledge, creativity, innovation or desire.’

RASHEED ARAEEN

TSL Next year, your work will be included at Documenta 17. Will this project be linked to that vision? RA I am doing two projects for Documenta, which are interconnected but different. In Athens, there will be six food mar- quees in the main square, surrounded by my geometric designs, which are being made by women there. My idea was to do free distribution of food, but there’s a problem with the budget, so there will be a nominal charge. In Kassel, my main piece will be a reading room. I will make a big table out of my structures, on which all the issues of Third Text will be displayed, and my paintings will be on the wall. In Athens, it will be the relationship between art and food, and in Kassel it will be art and reading. TSL So, both will be pointing the way towards the kind of collectivity you hope will come about through ‘ecoaesthetics’? RA My proposals for the future concern the whole world. That is my vision. I don’t think I will be able to fulfil it, but at least I can express my ideas. That’s the prob- lem with daydreaming. Whether they are practical or not, I will try and make my daydreams reality!

Tim Smith-Laing is a writer who lives in London, UK.

Rasheed Araeen lives in London, UK. This year, he has had solo shows at Aicon Gallery, New York, USA, and Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil. In 2017, his work will be included in the 57th , Italy (13 May to 26 November); Documenta 17 in Athens, Greece (8 April to 16 July), and Kassel, Germany (10 June to 17 September). His retrospective at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, will run from 2 December 2017 to 8 April 2018. 2

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