Clear Black Smoke Mohammed Qasim Ashfaq
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
CLEAR 1 BLACK 1 2 2 3 SMOKE 3 4 4 5 MOHAMMED 5 6 QASIM 6 7 7 8 ASHFAQ 8 9 9 10 10 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 14 15 15 16 16 17 17 18 18 19 19 20 20 21 21 22 22 23 23 24 24 25 25 26 26 27 27 28 28 CLEAR 1 BLACK 1 2 2 3 SMOKE 3 4 4 5 MOHAMMED 5 6 QASIM 6 7 7 8 ASHFAQ 8 9 9 10 10 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 14 15 15 16 16 17 First Edition 2017 17 18 18 19 Editor Shanay Jhaveri 19 20 Concept Shanay Jhaveri and Hannah Barry 20 21 Coordination Diana Córdoba Barrios 21 22 Photography Damian Griffiths 22 23 Studio photos Mohammed Qasim Ashfaq 23 24 ©The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum 24 25 / ARS, New York + DACS, London 25 26 Design Victoria Bridal 26 27 Typefaces Circular and Palatino Edited by 27 28 Printed by Ex Why Zed, Cambridge, United Kingdom Shanay Jhaveri 28 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 SCALING UP, TO SHIFT 5 5 6 Shanay Jhaveri 6 7 7 8 BLACK 9 8 9 Alexis Lowry 9 10 10 11 THINKING THROUGH PERFECT 13 11 12 WITH DONATIEN GRAU 12 13 13 14 MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES: 33 14 15 ISAMU NOGUCHI AND THE JANTAR MANTAR 15 16 Devika Singh 16 17 17 18 POTENTIAL ART 39 18 19 Ben Eastham 19 20 20 21 PERFECTION 45 21 22 Charlie Clarke 22 23 23 24 SHIFT 51 24 25 Paul Hobson 25 26 26 27 27 28 28 SCALING UP, 1 TO SHIFT 2 3 4 SHANAY JHAVERI 5 6 7 8 9 Mohammed Qasim Ashfaq’s is a nascent practice, one that 10 is still revealing itself. Since his !rst solo exhibition Silver at 11 Hannah Barry Gallery in 2011, in which he presented a group 12 of !ve maquettes on a raised table, his working methods have 13 altered only slightly, namely, his choosing not to work under the 14 forceful glare of an industrial-size tube light, and the addition 15 of a long daily walk. His tools – pencil, ruler, surgical blades, 16 Rotring compass – remain constant. He has also continued 17 to produce his intricate graphite drawings, which issue from 18 the maquettes, but are not technical views of the pieces, they 19 accentuate the convergence of lines that constitute such objects. 20 With Clear Black Smoke, his second presentation at the gallery’s 21 new Peckham space, Qasim Ashfaq diligently followed on from 22 where S"#$%& left off, slowly peeling back to reveal the ambition 23 at the heart of his practice, now on full display with his third 24 solo outing with Hannah Barry Gallery. 25 26 Clear Black Smoke comprised of two graphite drawings, two 27 medium-sized resin pieces Figure (2014) and Pyramids (2014) and 28 1 the life-sized sculptural works Rod (2010/2014) and Falling Stars public orientation of life sized sculptures, especially when they 1 2 II (2014). However, the set of drawings had been signi!cantly are not his own? It would seem that continued observation of 2 3 scaled up from their previous iterations, the diameter of the how Qasim Ashfaq navigates this particular equation between 3 4 geometric orbs increased, pulsating with ever greater intensity drawing and sculpture might be necessary. 4 5 from the centre of the crisp white sheets of paper. Dense, heavily 5 6 laboured, and very meticulous, the details, patterning and Therefore, it is still premature to try and !rmly tether Qasim 6 7 variation of each drawing only visible up close. Qasim Ashfaq Ashfaq’s slowly maturing work to speci!c historical precedents, 7 8 has since continued to push at the boundaries of his practice, referents or legacies that could range from Russian Constructivism 8 9 and scale seems to be a primary concern, as evident with his and British Minimalist Sculpture to American Post Minimalist 9 10 2016 commission for the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, Shift abstractions or even traditional Islamic art and architecture 10 11 (2016), a monumental drawing with a diameter of 5 meters exe- and South Asian Modernist drawing. Looking for formal 11 12 cuted directly on the wall. Qasim Ashfaq’s scaled up approach similarities is one way to approach the work, but could prove 12 13 to his drawings persists with his latest solo exhibition, again limiting. Qasim Ashfaq is working within a particular con- 13 14 6 with him choosing to present only another single monumental temporary context, which needs to be considered, as it informs 7 14 15 graphite work. his process and method. This publication that accompanies 15 16 his third show at Hannah Barry Gallery, does not seek to !x 16 17 Qasim Ashfaq’s renderings are without doubt results of a and over-determine a burgeoning practice, and hence takes 17 18 !erce precision and order; chance is not a condition he courts. a more speculative and expansive approach. It contains a series 18 19 It is hard not to imagine his drawings somehow expanding into of short texts that are not studies of Qasim Ashfaq’s practice, 19 20 architectural space. Having previously exhibited his drawings but examine in diverse ways certain matters and notions that 20 21 with fully realized sculptures, Qasim Ashfaq has skillfully seem to preoccupy him and manifest in his work. Also included 21 22 enacted a transition from the pictorial rectangle into specta- is an interview with the artist, and a one-word glossary that 22 23 torial space. This exchange between drawing and sculptural delves into the complex methods and procedures involved in 23 24 form was thrown into further relief when Shift was exhibited realizing Qasim Ashfaq’s evolving vision. 24 25 not alongside his own sculptures, but looming over a work by 25 26 Richard Long at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. Such pair- 26 27 ings prompts the question, how does the private contemplative 27 28 spatiality of the drawings interface with the very physical and 28 BLACK 1 2 ALEXIS LOWRY 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 What exactly do we see when we see black? This question is at 10 the heart of Mohammed Qasim Ashfaq’s practice. It is raised 11 not only by his persistent use of black to articulate the sharp 12 geometry of his irregular forms, but also by his penchant 13 for highly re'ective black surfaces. Take, for example Figure, 14 a glossy pyramidal structure with crisp black edges that appear 15 to cut through the white space of the gallery. A mirroring effect 16 produced by Figure’s epoxy resin surfaces cloaks the sculpture 17 in the faint likeness of its surroundings, de'ecting vision away 18 from Figure’s material support and bringing into high relief 19 the paradox of the perceptual phenomenon we know as black: 20 aesthetic refusal. 21 22 Black is the apperception of the absence of light – a void. It 23 is what we see when we see nothing at all. In the abyss of 24 a lightless room, just as in the abyss of outermost space, we are 25 blind. Yet, this blind spot is completely saturated; the pigment 26 black absorbs all of the colours of the spectrum and re'ects 27 none of them. Black is full and empty at the same time. This 28 1 tension has driven the history of Western abstraction toward insistent and repetitive silence, Reinhardt’s black paintings are 1 2 increasingly reductive terms. From Malevich to Reinhardt to able to speak volumes about the nature of aesthetic experience. 2 3 Stella we can trace a genealogy of black that critically informs 3 4 Ashfaq’s practice (but one among many histories of black he Several years after Reinhardt’s !rst monochrome, Frank Stella’s 4 5 draws upon). redacted canvases displaced the struggle between colour and 5 6 line altogether. Building upon Reinhardt’s systematic approach, 6 7 Kazimir Malevich !rst used black to articulate the principles in 1958 Stella painted his series of Black Paintings by applying 7 8 of Suprematism. In pursuit of an art of pure form he painted pigment to canvas in stripes only as wide as the paintbrush and 8 9 Black Square in 1915: an onyx quadrangle that 'oats almost in patterns derived from the shape of the canvas support. Each 9 10 imperceptibly off centre on a white canvas ground. In its refusal black line articulated the process of its own determination, priv- 10 11 to signify anything but its own geometry, Malevich offered ileging the inherent physicality of the stretched canvas above its 11 12 his black square as a kind of secular icon, intended to catalyse surface visuality. This was exaggerated by the deep stretcher, 12 13 the same intimate, experiential intensity as its Byzantine pre- which caused the painting to sit off the wall, encroaching into 13 14 10 decessors. Through this transcendent negation, Philip Shaw three-dimensional space. Freed of colour, Frank Stella’s Black 11 14 15 argues, Malevich found in black ‘the obfuscation of vision as Paintings exerted a phenomenological pull on audiences that 15 16 the principle of sublime incomprehension’. 1 suggested they were more than just images to behold. 16 17 17 18 Ad Reinhardt similarly turned to black in pursuit of existential Today, it is impossible to ignore the multivalent nature of aesthetic 18 19 af!rmation. From 1953 until his death in 1967 he exclusively experience – as both seen and sensed – that was articulated in 19 20 painted black canvases: each divided into six quadrants of and through black.