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. As a blind spot on the canvas, black became 20 21 obsessively rendered smooth pigment. Despite their rigid for- a presence to reckon with in the gallery. 21 22 mality, subtle variations between each section emerge with 22 23 close and extended observation. The trace of a cruciform, for 1 Philip Shaw, ‘Kasimir Malevich’s Black Square’, in Nigel Llewellyn and 23 24 example, appears within Reinhardt’s subdivisions, evoking the Christine Riding (eds.), The Art of the Sublime (2013); www.tate.org.uk/art/ 24 25 essentially modern battle between colour and line. Writing of research-publications/the-sublime/philip-shaw-kasimir-malevichs-black- 25 26 Reinhardt’s paintings as modern talismans Sam Hunter notes, square-r1141459. 26 27 ‘the less a painting contained the more it conveyed’.2 In their 2 Sam Hunter, Ad Reinhardt: Sacred and Profane (Record of the Art Princeton 27 28 University, 1991), vol. 50, no. 2, p. 32. 28 THINKING 1 THROUGH PERFECT 2 3 WITH 4 DONATIEN GRAU 5 6 7 8 Donatien Grau: Perfection is at the centre of your vision of 9 art, isn’t it? 10 11 Mohammed Qasim Ashfaq: Perfection is the thing on the 12 horizon that takes all one’s energy to reach. So if I’m thinking 13 about something that’s here, that has no consequence for what’s 14 over there. That’s what I’ve realised over the last couple of 15 months. I knew there was something that was missing, with 16 people not understanding what was missing. No one knows 17 what that thing is. And as soon as that thing is available, or 18 as soon as people see it, or as soon as they can see it, people 19 don’t want to understand that it’s there. That’s the best way 20 I can describe what perfection is. Because perfection does exist, 21 contrary to what everyone says. ‘You can’t make something 22 straight’, etc.: all those can’ts. This is a can’t. And yet, you think 23 about doing something, and you do it. You have to do something 24 or nothing is going be achieved, and you are not going to be 25 able to see something that’s not been represented before. It’s 26 the self-admission that you can’t change the order of things 27 that have arrived before us. All these things that are there. 28 1 It’s a complete denial that something could exist that’s right, 2 or true, or exact. I think people like things when they are not 3 !xed. They are scared of things that are straight and true. That’s 4 the thing that goes for it. 5 6 Donatien: People are scared of it, but when they experience 7 it, they thoroughly enjoy it: it’s fascinating when you see the 8 reaction to the works of James Turrell, Anish Kapoor when he 9 did Monumenta, or Marina Abramovic here in London. People 10 are scared but they want to be part of the experience, because 11 all of these works have a relation to a sense of totality, as yours 12 does. It’s different because your sense of totality, as opposed 13 to Turrell, as opposed to Kapoor, and in a sense opposed to

14 14 Marina Abramovic, is not monumental. It doesn’t appear as 15 monumental. It’s a sort of human scale monument, in a sense. 16 17 Mohammed: I don’t necessarily think that you have to make 18 something ten metres tall. I don’t think that you need to build 19 a mountain somewhere. I don’t think you need to destroy a 20 mountain somewhere, in order to have an effect, which is 21 greater than doing some art. 22 23 Donatien: You use these smaller shapes. There seems to be 24 really an obvious will on your side to make small objects. It’s 25 not just that you want to make them big but that you want to 26 make them small. 27 28

Mohammed: Oh, I’d love to make things big. If you just look 1 at the night sky, I’d like to make them that big. You can make 2 things that are big. Make things as big as a glass. Completely 3 change the thing. You can do it. Scale. How can we be churning 4 out stuff not realising that there is no change whatsoever, and 5 that it’s always like this? But then you can just make something, 6 one thing, it’s way more powerful than any of those things, in 7 a way. Just because it exists on its own. It’s complete. It’s whole. 8 It demonstrates its own vision. I think that’s way more beautiful. 9 10 Donatien: That has to do with a form of mysticism. With the 11 fact that it is an object that brings you somewhere else. It’s not 12 even an icon, really. 13

27 14 Mohammed: I think that’s right. I used to joke that Rod (2010) 15 had been orbiting the earth for many millennia and then it just 16 sort of landed on the earth. I’m surprised that no one’s seen 17 these objects before. I mean how many artists are there? How 18 many people make things? And no one has ever decided that 19 this is the thing they are going to make. 20 21 Donatien: They are self-evident, and yet they are really fragile. 22 23 Mohammed: If you could make something that was that beau- 24 tiful then it would be fragile. Because you would be on that 25 sort of precipice: just a slight tilt and you’re gone. That’s what 26 it’s about. Getting so close to it. In the grand scheme of things 27 we are nowhere. There is just that slight glimpse of it. When 28 1 the light hits it. And you can just see it for a bare millisecond 60% of what perfection actually is, they think it’s good enough, 1 2 that it exists. It reaf!rms itself. It is there. And we go towards and so they don’t see the !ne moments, to 98%, to 99%. 2 3 it. We have to try even harder to get there. 3 4 Donatien: And 100%. What about 100%? 4 5 Donatien: The process of making the work is somehow related 5 6 to that evolution. Mohammed: I think it would take two years to get from 0% to 6 7 90%, you know. It might take four years to get from 90% to 95%. 7 8 Mohammed: I’ve got nothing to do with where I am. I’ve got It might take a lifetime to get to 95... But that’s not a problem. 8 9 nothing to do with those objects existing. It’s all to do with the The thing is: you can get there. 9 10 people who have helped make it happen. It’s completely by 10 11 mistake, completely by chance that these things exist. But the Donatien: Your art explores a side of the visual language while 11 12 people I work with, they made it happen. I can just sit in my not being part of the visual culture of art. We were talking 12 13 room, make things with card, and worry about them existing about geographical identi!cations. In each of these works, the 13

14 28 and being real, real materials, real solid materials, !nding fab- symbols you use are universal. 29 14 15 ricators to help make the work. That’s the next level. I bring you 15 16 this, in card, and you’ve got to make that real. Present it in a way Mohammed: That’s why I don’t think that the fact I’m Muslim 16 17 that it’s not disposable. Not just an abstraction. It’s all to do with is a massive thing. I don’t even think that it’s a massive thing 17 18 !nding someone who can do it to the exact standards. I think that we are all human. I don’t even know what the current 18 19 it’s easy for artists to achieve a vision of their work which is human number is seven billion or whatever it is. In terms of 19 20 a rough translation. But when you are confronted with a piece of history, that’s insigni!cant. I think it’s very easy to say: ‘oh he’s 20 21 work, when you see something that is exactly like it is, the !rst Muslim and that is related to his use of geometry’. That con!nes 21 22 thing you want to say is that it’s bad. Because you don’t want the discussion. You are asking someone to look at it from here. 22 23 to believe how good it is. How often do people look at things Head on, straight on, ninety degree, on a wall. That’s it. You are 23 24 and say, ‘that is so poorly fabricated’, ‘why is it made badly?’. It asking to look at it from that point of view only. And I think 24 25 looks like an accident, it looks like a nightmare: how can you that is a dif!cult thing to understand. Because everything that 25 26 go so far with this material, and yet be so completely complicit we see in a visual culture is from that one angle. You never 26 27 in !nding a truth? Some people may understand perfection: see something from the wrong angle. I just like this idea that 27 28 they just fell to earth and that this millisecond that we see 28 1 these objects is just the millisecond that we see them. They fell Donatien: When you think about other colours, when you think 1 2 through the ceiling and just magically appeared. about white, white can get distorted, dirty, but black can’t, black 2 3 can’t get dirty. 3 4 Donatien: And why are they dark? 4 5 Mohammed: Yes, but black can show dust like no other thing. 5 6 Mohammed: I don’t know. It would be easy to say space is black; This notion of trying to hide something. You can’t hide dust on 6 7 and you see yourself re'ected in the work, so it sets something a black surface. You can’t hide anything on black. Think of dust 7 8 off. I like shiny surfaces. I think there is something in perfecting on a mirror. You can’t see it from a certain angle. But on black 8 9 the work. You can look at something in the space; be there and you can see dust from any angle. Yes, particularly if it’s shiny. 9 10 not be there at the same time. But it’s not an illusion. I’m not 10 11 trying to poke fun at the viewer. Maybe it’s like the sky. The 11 12 pure material. That’s what I think; materials have to be black, 12 13 or silver, or polished. Maybe white, but I’m not sure yet; that’s 13

14 30 pure material as well. I don’t see it as being a conversation with 31 14 15 black. It’s no way they exist like other colours like blue or red or 15 16 green or yellow. I think of Yves Klein: one of the most wonderful 16 17 things I’ve ever seen, a blue canvas, and a gold canvas. I don’t 17 18 think you can get better than that in terms of colour. 18 19 19 20 Donatien: When Mark Rothko made black paintings, the reason 20 21 was that he was reading the Talmud. Black is the tone, that, 21 22 when you look at it, in a way always changes. When you look 22 23 at black it can glow. As Soulages does, it really is a palette in its 23 24 own right. A palette, not only in terms of paint but also in terms 24 25 of the viewer. Black is the colour that is most likely to push the 25 26 viewer to change and experience something as a human being. 26 27 27 28 Mohammed: Do you think so? 28 MULTIPLE 1 PERSPECTIVES: 2 ISAMU NOGUCHI 3 4 AND THE 5 6 JANTAR MANTAR 7 8 9 DEVIKA SINGH 10 11 12 In the eighteenth century Maharaja Jai Singh II, the founder of 13 modern Jaipur, commissioned !ve astronomical observatories 14 known as the Jantar Mantars. The ones in Delhi and Jaipur are 15 the best preserved ones. Their instruments, some designed by 16 Jai Singh himself, have been a source of inspiration for many 17 artists and architects who came to India over the centuries and 18 the Jantar Mantars remain amongst the most popular sites of 19 India. Many visitors don’t know how to use the instruments or 20 what exactly each is meant for. But this is beside the point. The 21 Jantar Mantar is an amusement park made of abstract shapes. 22 My own photo albums since childhood are replete with images 23 of the triangular and crater-like formations located in the centre 24 of Jaipur, my family’s hometown. Indians and foreigners alike 25 have felt a special attachment to this arrangement of odd and 26 delectable forms. Isamu Noguchi, who took many photographs 27 of both Delhi’s and Jaipur’s Jantar Mantar, is one of them. 28 Though his links with the country date back to a much earlier 1 period of his life, Noguchi only visited India in 1949 with a grant 2 from the Bollingen Foundation. He arrived in Bombay via Italy, 3 Greece and Egypt and toured the country’s main architectural 4 sites for about six months. As Masayo Duus puts it, ‘by looking 5 at remains of ancient cultural monuments and sculpture, Isamu 6 hoped to understand how artists had established relationships 7 with society in earlier times’. 1 In addition his photographs also 8 spoke of the postwar context of the time. Perhaps the most 9 unusual image he took of the Jantar Mantar shows a young boy 10 making his way through a maze of huge jagged shapes. The site 11 looks derelict and Noguchi conveys a suffocating atmosphere 12 that is unlike any other photograph of the Jantar Mantar. It 13 recalls the desolate landscapes and rubble of postwar Europe 35 14 recorded by Roberto Rossellini and Henri Cartier-Bresson. 15 Except that contrary to them, Noguchi’s work was not about 16 testimony or record. 17 18 Writing in 1949, the year of his !rst trip to India that would 19 eventually take him to Japan, Noguchi wrote that, ‘in the crea- 20 tion and existence of a piece of sculpture, individual possession 21 has less signi!cance than public enjoyment’.2 Though most 22 of his projects on India remained unrealized, the repeated 23 trips Noguchi made across the country had a lasting in'uence 24 throughout his career. Caught somewhere between architec- 25 ture, outdoor sculpture and giant scienti!c prop, Delhi’s heart 26 shaped Misra Yantra would thus serve as the primary source 27 for Noguchi’s Slide Mantra – a big marble spiral exhibited at 28 1 the Venice biennale in 1986 when Noguchi represented the 2 United States.3 Contrary to the usually frontal images of the 3 Taj Mahal, as well as the slightly repetitive takes on the giant 4 gutter that tops Chandigarh’s Assembly building, there is no 5 prescribed way of photographing the Jantar Mantar landscapes. 6 The unusually frontal design of the Misra Yantra is an exception. 7 But Noguchi didn’t keep to it. His sculpture is a giant swirl; 8 inside an interior staircase leads to a slide. Its black version 9 now sits in a park in Sapporo and can be used by children and 10 grown-ups alike. 11 12 Devoid of their original function and reduced to their design, 13 the Jantar Mantar instruments pay homage to Indian science

14 36 and its maverick inventors. First meant to record the move- 15 ment of the sun, moon and the planets, they remain, like the 16 precise futuristic and at times sci-! constructions that make 17 up Mohammed Qasim Ashfaq’s installations, a yardstick to 18 measure our in!nitely small presence in the universe and 19 convey our desire to understand it. 20 21 22 23 24 3 Masayo Duus, The Life of Isamu Noguchi: Journey without Borders (Princeton 25 University Press, 2004), p. 199. 26 4 Isamu Noguchi, ‘Towards a Reintegration of the Arts’, College Art Journal 27 (1949), vol. 9, no. 1, p. 59. 28 5 Sam Miller, Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity (Penguin Books, 2010), p. 44. POTENTIAL 1 ART 2 3 4 BEN EASTHAM 5 6 7 8 I want to take this opportunity to speculate upon, and thereby 9 to circuitously celebrate, a creative method I have long admired, 10 and of which Mohammed Qasim Ashfaq’s drawings and 11 sculptures seem to me exceptionally re!ned expressions. It 12 is a technique premised upon the achievement of the sublime 13 or beautiful, if I can be forgiven the terms (given the brevity 14 of this text and your familiarity with the quibbles), through 15 variations upon a single, predetermined theme. Patterns, rules 16 and structures are posited as catalysts rather than obstruc- 17 tions to creative expression; the ‘light bulb’ theory of divine 18 inspiration is replaced by something closer to an architect’s 19 intelligent design. 20 21 The approach, most easily described with reference to the 22 movements in which its principles are enshrined, is one that 23 I most closely associate with the Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle. 24 Founded by the mathematician François Le Lionnais and writer 25 Raymond Queneau, the OuLiPo group sought to develop a style 26 of literature premised upon the adoption of a rule, formula or 27 ‘constraint’ that would guide the writer in his compositional 28 1 choices. A novelist might, for example, write a book that for- of abstract paintings premised upon geometrical rhythms. 1 2 sakes the letter ‘e’ (as Georges Perec did in La Disparition); Yet their adoption of precise systems, Alloway wrote in a 2 3 a poet publish a series of sonnet sections which, through their catalogue accompanying a seminal exhibition of their work, 3 4 arrangement in different combinations, creates one hundred ‘is not antithetical to the values suggested by such art world 4 5 thousand billion separate possible poems, each a permutation wordclusters as humanist, organic, and process. On the con- 5 6 on ten originals (Queneau’s Cent Mille Milliards de Poems). The trary, while the artist is engaged with it, a system is a process.’ 6 7 strict de!nition of the composition’s constitutive elements does The creation of an underlying framework is thus reconciled 7 8 not, these works demonstrate, meaningfully restrict the variety with our traditional understanding of creativity as expressive, 8 9 of possible outcomes but rather generates divergent thinking, originary, demiurgic. 9 10 the cornerstone of creative activity. Necessity, as they say, is 10 11 the mother of invention. The impulse to exploit arti!ce precisely as a means to transcend 11 12 arti!ce is not new, and once you start looking is everywhere. 12 13 The founding tenet of OuLiPo contravenes the popular concep- J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations (1741) best demonstrate the musi- 13

14 40 tion of the creative act as an expression of absolute freedom, of cian’s aspiration to the divine through the adoption of axiomatic 41 14 15 liberation from the habits and institutions we hold responsible principles; the 22-year-old Glenn Gould’s 1955 interpretation 15 16 for repressing the expressive instincts that supposedly inhere of them demonstrates how even a work !xed in the canon 16 17 in us. By contrast, OuLiPo promotes the voluntary acceptance can be twisted into something new, thrilling and previously 17 18 of ‘constraints’, an imaginative infrastructure through the inconceivable. The fractal designs that structure David Foster 18 19 negotiation of which it is possible to create new things. This Wallace’s writing draw on patterns that have only recently 19 20 has always struck me as an enticing counterargument to the revealed themselves to us, the feedback loops of artists such 20 21 notion that we should abandon our inhibitions, rediscover our as Ed Atkins on those that we have lately invented. In the 21 22 inner children, and return to smearing paint upon the walls. incorporation of these structural buttresses to our own fragile 22 23 intelligence inheres the desire, it seems to me, to overcome 23 24 The OuLiPo movement found a parallel in the practice of them. Now I perceive this same compulsion, in the supremely 24 25 Systemic Painting, to use the term coined by Lawrence rare!ed permutations upon a scheme that characterise Qasim 25 26 Alloway, which emerged in the United States at around the Ashfaq’s practice. 26 27 same time. Artists such as Frank Stella, Agnes Martin and 27 28 Kenneth Noland explored repetition and pattern in the creation 28 1 These codes are developed in the artist’s case from sources as 2 diverse as the arabesque textile patterns of the Ottoman era, 3 logical positivism, and late twentieth-century science !ction. 4 Most importantly, his work is premised upon the principles 5 that have guided the representation of the divine in Islamic 6 art, architecture and ornamentation since the seventh century, 7 and which have much in common with the methodologies 8 I have sought brie'y to outline. 9 10 The fact remains that the visitor to this exhibition is more likely 11 to be struck dumb by the grandeur of the works on show than 12 to devote much thought to the procedures by which they were 13 achieved. That is a symptom of their success. Unforeseeable

14 42 effects are here wrought through predictable processes; a neat 15 encapsulation, if one is needed, of what it means to make art 16 in any form. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 PERFECTION 1 1 2 2 3 CHARLIE CLARKE 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 Mohammed Qasim Ashafq continually refers to a desire for 9 10 perfection in his work, so I think this might be worth considering 10 11 a little. 11 12 12 13 The notion of there being a perfect or ideal form ‘out there’ 13 14 waiting to be achieved seems at odds with the way many artists 14 15 work; it implies a predetermined conclusion rather than an 15 16 exploration into the unknown, a visible goal rather than the 16 17 application of a method whose result cannot be predicted and 17 18 the importance of which will not be known until afterwards. 18 19 19 20 I had always thought of failure as the most important outcome 20 21 of the pursuit of perfection in art. 21 22 22 23 Of course, by failure I don’t mean incompetence or catastrophe; 23 24 I mean that to create an object (painting, drawing or sculpture) 24 25 which is a perfect realisation of the impulse from which it came, 25 26 could one do it, would somehow be to create something known, 26 27 possible to preconceive and beyond the fallibility of everything 27 28 human. It would feel processed and therefore strangely cold 28 1 and unmoving. But the point at which an artist gives up and Perhaps he was born with them, or perhaps they come from 1 2 accepts what they have made is the point at which the shortfall the beginning of time. That sounds a bit majestic, but there is 2 3 between result and intention de!nes their achievement. a sense with Qasim Ashafq that it is not he who is choosing. 3 4 4 5 The idiosyncrasy of the resultant object is, by default, a true and Making, therefore, is not discovering or creating: the objects 5 6 unselfconscious expression. It is not the arrival at perfection have already been ‘created’. Making is a matter of realising 6 7 that is important; it is the striving for it. and revealing. 7 8 8 9 In failure, one de!nes oneself in a way which cannot be contrived. The processes of drawing and sculpting maquettes for Qasim 9 10 The beautiful and moving works of art we see in the world’s Ashafq involve measuring, marking, applying a straightedge, 10 11 museums are often just such failures which we treasure because and drawing along it either pencil graphite or scalpel blade 11 12 we relate to them with a powerful sense of communication made with unerring accuracy; the repeated action requiring highly 12 13 possible by the fact that they are the product of a very human consistent patience and resolve. Here the artist is directly in 13

14 46 endeavour. control. 47 14 15 15 16 Failure, I thought, marks the frontier of an artist’s accomplish- Sculpture, however, involves activities which are altogether 16 17 ment, and as a consequence it is here that we !nd the purest more complex. Diverse materials are worked by engineers, 17 18 expression. craftsmen and technicians who are drawn into a collaboration 18 19 led by the charisma of the artist. Those involved are inspired 19 20 Qasim Ashafq, though, seems to know where he is going, and by a sense of purpose. 20 21 where he is taking us. He expresses a true faith that perfection 21 22 in his work is not only possible, but that its achievement is his When an object begins to appear in which success can be 22 23 duty. He often talks of his works as if they must have always glimpsed, this fuels a renewed momentum. In the pursuit of 23 24 existed, and it is true that having encountered one, it is hard to perfection, for Qasim Ashafq, the failures point back to the 24 25 imagine a world where they were not always present. drawing board, but the successes light the path ahead. 25 26 26 27 27 28 28 1 Qasim Ashafq’s latest body of work has been a long time in the 2 making, and this is probably because, up until now, the next 3 step has always been immediately apparent. 4 5 But recently a half-landing seems to have been arrived at, where 6 the objects have been cast free from the hands that made them. 7 They have a kind of aura which suggests that the viewer cannot 8 touch them, that they have never been touched, and the visual 9 effect is quite hypnotic. 10 11 What we are seeing is not perfection; if it were there would be 12 no reason to carry on. But we do see sculptures and drawings 13 which already take us further than we would ever have thought

14 48 possible. 15 16 To use Qasim Ashafq’s own language, we have been taken over 17 the hill and our horizons have broadened. But what’s over the 18 hill? Another hill, of course. 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 SHIFT 1 2 PAUL HOBSON 3 4 5 6 7 Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey 8 (1968) begins at the dawn of mankind with a terrifying sequence 9 in which a mysterious monolith visits a community of hominids. 10 Agitated into violence by the hermetic antagonism of the sleek 11 black form, a transmission of knowledge – unfathomable and 12 mute from across the ages and far into the future – is signalled 13 by the micropolyphony of György Ligeti’s Atmosphères. A 14 communion of sorts is taking place between intelligent forms 15 that have evolved over millennia; the original and the !nal. 16 17 In Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, written in collaboration with 18 Kubrick and published shortly after the !lm, monoliths are 19 machines built by an unseen extraterrestrial species. In the 20 series of novels, just three of the many thousands of others in 21 the solar system, are discovered by humans leading to new eras 22 of technological development and space exploration. Engineered 23 into forms of minimal perfection, these simple geometric forms 24 represent systems of intelligence at their most evolved and 25 remote, evoking a sense of time and space, of experience and 26 knowledge that has transcended the primitive con!nes of the 27 embodied; that is both interior and exterior. 28 1 In a similar way, encountering one of Mohammed Qasim created in situ on the gallery wall over several days while the 1 2 Ashafq’s works evokes a startling sense of a visitation. Perhaps visiting public wandered through the gallery, asserting the 2 3 this is what it feels like to experience the divine? He appears performative aspects of his process, with the resulting drawing 3 4 to draw on ancient reservoirs of tranquil meditation in a prac- a temporary piece that would shortly be lost in time. Taking 4 5 tice where process and materiality are foregrounded, creating into its shimmering graphite surface the structures and shifting 5 6 monochromatic geometric forms – drawings and sculptures light of the gallery space, the large orbital drawing exercised a 6 7 – that commune in non-speci!c terms. Clearly in'uenced by planetary gaze onto the works and audience below, a gravita- 7 8 aspects of both Islamic and modern art, his drawings invite a tional void in the voluminous space that combined drawing, 8 9 deep contemplation akin to a devotional practice, where the sculpture and installation in a succinct form. 9 10 work opens up a portal for communication that ultimately 10 11 routes into a sense of self that is spiritual or intellectual, but Qasim Ashafq’s piece looked over Richard Long’s Walking 11 12 not embodied. a Labyrinth commissioned for the Modern Art Oxford in 1971 12 13 and reinstalled as one of many works returning to the gallery 13

14 52 It was this speci!c quality of Qasim Ashafq’s work that led us to for our 50thanniversary. It was accompanied by Thunder (2005) 53 14 15 commission him to create a new site speci!c work for the upper by Hannah Rickards, a recording of an eight-second thunder- 15 16 gallery of Modern Art Oxford. Forming part of a group show clap stretched into a seven-minute passage, transcribed and 16 17 in our year-long 50th anniversary programme, Its Me To The arranged into a score for a sextet by composer David Murphy. 17 18 World explored ideas of embodied experience and cognition in The subsequent performance was recorded and compressed to 18 19 relation to the environment, and asked how we might connect the original length of the thunder clap of eight seconds. All of 19 20 more with ourselves in response to nature. The exhibition took the works took embodied cognitive experience and translated 20 21 its title from a statement from British land artist, Richard Long it into forms of meditation, in doing so drawing on linguistic, 21 22 who said: ‘My footsteps make the mark. My legs carry me across spatial and performative systems. Set within this trio of very 22 23 the country. Its like a way of measuring the world. I love that different practices, Qasim Ashafq’s Shift represented a powerful 23 24 connection to my own body. Its me to the world.’ sense of order and perfection, serving to open up new space 24 25 for an intense – sometimes divine - encounter with the work 25 26 Qasim Ashafq’s contemplative drawings aligned to our inter- and its form and ourselves. 26 27 est in the artistic mediation of interior and exterior worlds in 27 28 the most economic and distilled way. The large drawing was 28 CONTRIBUTORS 1 ALEXIS LOWRY is an Associate Curator at Dia Art Foundation 2 in New York City. Prior to joining Dia, she was Curator of the 3 David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University. 4 5 BEN EASTHAM is the Co-Founder and Editor of The White 6 Review, and Assistant Editor of art-agenda. He is the co-author 7 with Katya Tylevich of My Life as a Work of Art (Laurence King, 8 2016). 9 10 CHARLIE CLARKE is an art technician with over twenty 11 years experience working with museums, galleries and artists. 12 13 DONATIEN GRAU is a scholar and writer based in Paris, 14 a Contributing Editor of Flash Art International, an Editor at Large 15 of Purple Fashion Magazine and advisor to Azzedine Alaïa for 16 the Maison Alaïa’s non-for-pro!t exhibition space, the Galerie. 17 18 DEVIKA SINGH is an art historian, critic and curator based in 19 Paris, a fellow at the Centre Allemand d’Histoire de l’Art (Max 20 Weber Foundation) and an associate scholar at the Centre of 21 South Asian Studies of the University of Cambridge. 22 23 SHANAY JHAVERI is Assistant Curator, South Asia, Modern 24 and Contemporary Art, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 25 New York. 26 27 PAUL HOBSON is Director of Modern Art Oxford. 28 ILLUSTRATED WORKS 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 FIGURE MASS III 6 7 2014-15 2014 7 8 Solid resin Graphite on Fabriano 8 9 51 cm high 4 Smooth, 200gsm 9 10 Overall paper size 75 x 75 cm 10 11 FALLING STARS I Geometry diameter 60 cm 11 12 2013 12 13 Lacquered steel PYRAMIDS 13 14 Three parts, each 88 x 143 x 82 cm 2010-14 14 15 Installation guide dimensions approx. 100 x 289 x 192 cm Sheet resin 15 16 67 x 60 x 69 cm 16 17 FALLING STARS II 17 18 2014 ROD 18 19 Lacquered steel 2010-14 19 20 Three parts, each 88 x 143 x 82 cm Solid aluminium 20 21 Installation guide dimensions approx. 100 x 250 x 100 cm 3 m high 21 22 22 23 BEADS SHIFT 23 24 2010-14 2016 24 25 Solid resin and rope Graphite 25 26 Three parts, each 12 cm diameter 250 x 250 cm 26 27 Installation dimensions variable It’s Me to the World installation view, 2016 © Modern Art Oxford 27 28 Photo by Ben Westoby 28 We should like to thank all the contributors to this publication, 1 in particular Shanay Jhaveri for his excellent editorial command 2 and conceptual guidance. Many thanks also go to those who 3 have supported the artist in important ways over the past few 4 years, Charlie Clarke, Anthony and Anne d’O!ay, Amrita Jhaveri 5 and Christopher Davidge, Priya Jhaveri, Marie-Louise Laband, 6 Sir Norman Rosenthal, Stephanie Rosenthal and her team at 7 the Hayward Gallery, Inigo Philbrick, Claire Shea, Tamsin Clark, 8 Thomas and Laurie Clark, Orlando Whit"eld and Paul Hobson, 9 Emma Ridgway and their team at Modern Art Oxford, and 10 Ciara Moloney. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28