62 Flash Art J A N U A R Y F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 3
FLASH ART ASIA 4 FEATURE
State of Emergency DISCOURSING ON SIX BANGLADESHI ARTISTS Ebadur Rahman Bangladesh_cg_ug.indd 62 12/8/12 1:24 PM J A N U A R Y F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 3 Flash Art 63 STATE OF EMERGENCY IT WAS THE early 70s when Henry Kissinger referred to Bangladesh as an international basket case, which in turn was misunder- stood by Bengali hacks and was mistranslated as a bottomless basket shorthand for a black hole of international aid and a land of disaster visibly ridden with dark, smelly, lazy and corrupt Wogs waiting for Yankee goodies to be dumped on them. As Walter Benjamin notes, the tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the state of emergency in which we live is not an exception but the rule. The trope of bot- tomless basket-ness highlighted the constant state of emergency that had been a part of Bangladeshi DNA and, at the same time, a wound and a trauma that birthed a national self-consciousness. From what Benjamin calls the homog- enous, empty time of Western history, the modern Bengali Muslim identity was C-sectioned, and the trauma of bottomless basket-ness was an important ingredient of that empty, homogenous time, without which contemporary Bangladeshs history and LGHQWLW\ZRXOGKDYHEHHQGLIFXOWWRLPDJLQH Our inability to produce a coherent historical narrative seems to be located in the inward- looking, traumatic complexity that also de- stabilizes the ideals of the Bengal School of Arts that was fomented and midwifed by Ernest Francisco Fenollosas most prominent VWXGHQW2NDNXUD.DNX] Okakura had been to Bengal at least twice by 1905, and had written The Ideals of the East (1904) in which he postulated on the eve of Sino-Russian war a previously unheard of Pan-Asianism. Around the same time, the exchanges between Bengali artists and the PHPEHUVRIWKH1LKRQ+DQJD.\NDL>-DSDQ 3DLQWLQJ 6RFLHW\@ IRXQGHG E\ .DNX] in 1896 translated into Abanindranath Tagores trademark wash technique and a new way of invoking Bengali reality that became a makeshift template and a launching point for Indian artists of the later generations, PRVW QRWDEO\ 1DQGDODO %RVH -DPLQL 5R\ Ramkinkar Baij, K.G. Subramanyan and, in a more diffused way, S.H. Raza, M.F. Husain and Francis Newton Souza, among others. It was a crucial time throughout the empire, and in this remote corner of Bengal there were great enunciations of practical, artistic and ideological imperatives to set out an anti- colonial and anti-imperial project. These relations were clearly formulated as a resistance, which is also evident in the contact and contamination that Rabindranath Tagore initiated through his incessant travels to the West and in his effort to bring in foreign scholars like Leonard Knight Elmhirst, Stella Kramrisch or Sylvia Levy. Tagores brother Gaganendranath exhibited his typically native Cubist works at a Bauhaus show at the Indian Society of Oriental Art in Calcutta, in 1922, at which both Kandinsky and Klee were on display among 250 other artists. Kandinskys watercolors attracted reverent reviews. Contemporary art in Bangladesh locates its lineage in this alternative vernacular mod- ernism that has never been part of the great modernistic project; Bangladeshi artists take sustenance and construct meaning from a euro-eccentric art history. The following discourse looks at six con- temporary artists from Bangladesh: Monirul Islam, Naeem Mohaiemen, Ruhul Amin Kajol, Munem Wasif, Atiqul Islam and Shumon Ahmed. Monirul Islam is a veteran printmaker of 30 years whose latest solo exhibition Of Rupture and Continuity at Bengal Foundation in 2011 makes use of innova- tive techniques and unusual local materials: wood shavings, crushed temple brick dust, NAEEM MOHAIEMEN, United Red Army (The Young Man Was, Part 1), 2012. Video, 70 mins. Courtesy the artist. Opposite: SHUMON AHMED, Land of the Free, 2009. Photo montage on digital print, 49 x 76 cm. Courtesy Chobi Mela VI, Goethe Institute Dhaka, 2011. Bangladesh_cg_ug.indd 63 12/8/12 1:24 PM 64 Flash Art J A N U A R Y F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 3 FLASH ART ASIA 4 FEATURE is part of human essence, but then our essence is against philosophy. Philosophy stages truth, philosophy invcstigatcs ofcial tfuths, which constitutc conscnsual fcality; ! wont nd tfuc tfuth in that tfuth; could lcgitimatc and pcf- functofy lics tcll thc tfuth? Can you pfcdict thc pfoccss whcfc thc gfccd-csscncc and thc lcgitimatc lics can showcasc clabofatc and figofous staging of ccftain idcas that ! am using as vchiclcs to manifcst my inncf wofld? Looking at thc aftists of thc 7Os who wcfc dcpcndcnt on and fcacting to what happcncd abfoad, who happily contfactcd inucnccs likc discascs stfuggling to cxpfcss my inncf fcality, ! fcalizcd that it is mofc impoftant to say what ! nccdcd to say than making pfctty aft. Cfcating dccofativc and bcautiful ob|ccts was not fof mc. Bcauty has to adhcfc to thc gcncfal laws of acsthctics. ! chuckcd away thc gfammaf book and intcndcd to cxpfcss my inncf tfuth. And as my inncf wofld staftcd to manifcst outsidc, it cfcatcd its own gfammaf and bccamc bcautiful by its own cfitcfia. Muncm Wasif has conffontcd and mcdiatcd thc complicity bctwccn thc fcpfcscntation of thc systcmic violcncc of povcfty and thc fc- gimc of imagcs with scfiousncss and thcofcti- cal rigor. Salt Water Tears (2OO9), his doom- MUNEM WASIF, In God We Trust, 2009. Digital pigment print, 46 x 31 cm. Courtesy Visa pour lImage 2010, Perpignan (FR). somctimcs cxplofcs thc contfadictions bc- twccn Bcngalis with mafginal migfant status and thosc with authofitafian folcs in thcif own countfy. As paft of this modus opcfan- di, Muslims or Heretics: My Camera Can Lie (2OO4) is a documcntafy about such ovcflap- ping multiplc fcalitics and pcfccptions. !n I Have Killed Pharaoh (2O1O), a chaptcf of his ongoing pfo|cct The Young Man Was (2OO6), Naccm stagcs thc loosc histofical shafds of two assassinations Igypts thifd pfcsidcnt Anwaf Sadat and Bangladcshs pfimc minis- tcf Shcikh Mu|ib Rahman as a contcsting stfata of fcalitics and fclationships as con- tcmplatcd thfough thc cfitical lcns of an aftist who is constantly and incluctably mafginal- izcd and disavowcd by hcgcmonic idcologics. Naccm builds complcx scqucntial sccnafios that progress across emotional space; he at- tcmpts a cafnivalcsquc invcfsion of idcology and a fcasscssmcnt of thc attitudcs that fc- imaginc an antcfiof tfuth of thc founding ction of thc Bcngali nation, thfcading a ncw vision along thc |aggcd fault lincs of national- ism and idcntity politics. Likc a hip-hop poct, Ruhul Amin Ka|ols public aft pfo|ccts mix pop, politics, spifit and a stfangc sadncss. ucstioncd about his fctfospcctivc at Bcngal Gallcfy of !inc Aft in Dhaka (2O11), hc statcs: This is a show pfc- miscd on illcgitimatc tfuth. ! always fclt gfccd misshapcn coffugatcd cafdboafd soufccd ffom uscd packing boxcs, handmadc papcf. Monifuls invcstigation of abstfaction as clcgant, stfippcd down and dc-skillcd as it has bccomc fofgcts fofmality and pufity and vccfs ffom voluptuousncss to austcfity, ffom thc moodincss of monochfomc to thc scnsual toncs of spfingtimc in fufal Bcngal. His |oufncy stations him in an unfcal statc of indctcfminacy a uid and ffcc statc bctwccn void and thc tfuc cmptincss of con- ccpts. Though his aif fof handling matcfials and colofs can bc obscfvcd thfoughout his wofks, thc fofmations and motifs hc has bccn using thfoughout his lifc, such as thc stick g- ufc matadof, thc |aggcd and zigzagging lincs and pattcfns, havc mofc fcccntly bccn libcf- atcd ffom thc satufatcd cmotional contcnt that Moniful is famous fof tfafcking. !nstcad, |oyful mandalas invokc thc tfansitions and unccftaintics of homclcssncss wc all havc bccn cxpcficncing ovcf thc past fcw ycafs. A multimcdia aftist, lmmakcf, cssayist, activist, cditof and pfolic wfitcf, Naccm Mohaicmcn uscs tcxts, photos, vidcos and afchival matcfials to cxplofc thc histofy of thc intcfnational lcft, utopia/distopia slip- pagc, post-paftition South Asia and issucs of global security. Wofking bctwccn two countfics Bangladcsh and thc \nitcd Statcs Naccm Bangladesh_cg_ug.indd 64 12/8/12 1:24 PM J A N U A R Y F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 3 Flash Art 65 STATE OF EMERGENCY laden reportage of Bangladeshi miserabilia, was not activated within a political vacuum; it inaugurated a refusal of neo-Oriental poli- tics and eschewed dominant ways of thinking about an emerging reality that should not be processed in idealized, settled, schematic and totalized codes and industrial conventions. In God We Trust (2009), Munem utilized the languages of both documentary and photo reportage. It is best understood within the framework of a broader documentarian impulse that bears witness and responds to a complex, low-intensity war situation fac- ing Islam. On the contrary, his foci oscillate from empirical accuracy to storytelling of events as they were encountered by active subjects. He distrusts language and seems deeply ambivalent about the veracity of what it describes. Unlike some of his colleagues, he is uncomfortable with the current market demand for depoliticizing the documentary in favor of a pictorial tendency in the service of consumption. Atiqul Islams mutable sculptures seem to havc a stfong conccptual afnity with Richafd Longs work and with Land Art in general. His sculptural appropriations of traditional systems of reckoning can be seen as refrac- tions/representations of the desire to subdue and master the staging of the ideological pa- rameters that brutally curtail the disposition of nature. Modernist sculpture, the label with which Atiqul dialogically and shyly engages, asserts an inherent lack of roots that, in the hands of a modernist like Brancusi, makes claims to being self-referential and culturally non-spccic; Atiqul, not unlikc many of his Western counterparts, refuses to experience the more recent phenomenon of self-refer- ential forms, reverting to regressive antidotes of folksy simplicity and rural archaism within thc safc camouagc of tfaditional postufing. Shumon Ahmed has been an iconic non- presence in the Bengali art scene. Neither a typical nc aftist nof comfoftablc undcf thc auspices of the strong documentary photogra- phy conventions of Bangladesh, for Shumon, thc camcfa is a tool to ncgatc ofcial fcal- ity; the camera is a prosthetic eye to process and to cope with a world of hostile and weird images. These images appear almost as care- fully staged studies of the tensions and power fclations aficting thc livcs of thc Bcngali among whom he grew up but feels increas- ingly alienated. His photographic tableaux The Land of the Free (2009) documents the daily life of a former Guantanemo Bay inmate from Dhaka. It initiates an open-ended and anti-documentary narrative that forms a mass of information without lineage or hierarchy; he short-circuits our understanding of the war on terror and our understanding of sanity and masculinity through the lens of the uncon- scious libidinal economy; such a reading is not a simple de-sublimation, a reduction and unpacking of an ideological formation to its lower economic or libidinal cause. The aim of such an approach is the inherent de-centering of the status of a certain reality, which brings to light its un-thought, its disavowed presup- positions and consequences, which offers a praxis of change and redemption by revising the powers grand narrative by proposing at least two things: on one hand that historical moments should be pluralistic micro-narra- tives plotted as confrontations rather than transition; and on the other hand that such confrontations with power are signaled by a functional change in the system of signs. Ebadur Rahman is an independent curator, writer and OPPDNHU+HLVFXUUHQWO\HGLWLQJDERRNRQFRQWHPSRUDU\ %DQJODGHVKLDUWVWKDWZLOOEHODXQFKHGGXULQJWKHQH[W9HQLFH %LHQQDOH+HLVEDVHGLQ'KDNDDQG3DULV NAEEM MOHAIEMEN, Kazi in Nomansland, 2009. Stamps, 9 x 6 x 2 cm. Courtesy Green Cardamom, London. Bangladesh_cg_ug.indd 65 12/8/12 1:25 PM
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