Dr. Martin Nixon - Zayed University Assistant Professor of Art History
Published
21 June 2024
“What is the nature of art?” I have to ask this question. Is the nature of art that it is a painting or sculpture, or is there something beyond that?”
Mohammed Kazem is one of the UAE’s most established artists and has exhibited in many prestigious events such as the Venice Biennale and the UAE pavilion for Expo 2020. He works with a range of techniques and materials including performance art, painting, video, and installation. [i] During a conversation and studio visit we talked about a range of topics, but here I will focus on his move from painting to a more conceptualist approach.
Mohammed Kazem: To give you a rough idea about my practice, I started as a painter officially in 1984, and most of my practice in the beginning was influenced by European conventional painting, especially Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, and all of the modern period in the visual arts. In the beginning I was studying general painting at the Emirates Fine Art Society, and Hassan Sharif was in charge of teaching young artists. [ii] I used to meet many artists at that small villa in Sharjah, and also poets. The poets played an important role by publishing articles about artists in newspapers and magazines because they also worked as journalists.
MN: What kinds of things did the artists and poets talk about?
MK: The poets provided us with books and literature. Hassan, who spoke Persian, Arabic, and English, would often translate them. He translated The Large Glass and so many other essays from English to Arabic. [iii] We were reading all this material in the newspaper, because he was publishing it weekly in Al Khaleej and Al Ittihad.
When the Emirates Fine Art Society finished at 8pm we used to go to someone’s house or to a coffee shop. I still meet many of them today. For example, I’ve known Adel Khozam for over 35 years. [i] Adel is a poet, and we met with artists, poets, filmmakers, writers, and playwrights, not just artists. Hassan, of course, was influential - he was the one who brought conceptual art and performance art to the region.
MN: Could you say more about how you changed from painting to more conceptual work?
MK: I didn’t just bluntly stop painting and start going to conceptual work. It took me 5 years. I was constantly criticising my work in order to develop my practice. Hassan was very patient to provide me with the information. He was very helpful in showing me what had happened in art history. Marcel Duchamp’s essays, then minimalism and conceptualism like Joseph Kosuth’s Art after Philosophy. [v] All of this material changed me, and I had to ask “What is the nature of art?” I have to ask this question. Is the nature of art that it is a painting or sculpture, or is there something beyond that? In the past I received some criticism about moving away from painting as I started with more conceptual work but I wanted to grow and experiment with multiple ideas, approaches and meanings.
In the late 80s I started with the scratches. I started to make them in 1993. I exhibited some so that the audience could see both sides. It looked like a relief or semi-sculpture so I wanted to show them as objects with depth, not only as two-dimensional work. When I scratch the work, I create a sound on the surface of the paper and most of these are reacting with the natural light, so when the light is moving the scratches and the shadows are moving on the surface of the paper.
With regard to Ink on Scratched Paper of 1993 (fig.2), the colour is absorbing the sound, but we see two tones from one colour. Every time I scratch them I do it in different ways, sometimes I use freehand and sometimes I use a ruler.
Sometimes I come to the studio in the morning and try to “collect” light, which I do by putting the scissors on the surface of the paper and scratching as I follow the light. By keeping the paper monochrome, I can show the scratches as a reaction to the light.
Martin Nixon: So on Collection Light of 2020, was most of the light in the centre?
MK: Yes. I’m scratching from the centre to the corners, and most of the white works are reacting with the light. It’s as if I were composing on the paper, and each paper had a different sound because of the way I scratch it.
MN: Let’s talk about the Kisses Series of 2014 (fig.4). Could you explain more about the procedure?
MK: I was at a residency at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and on the first day I crossed the road and saw so much gum everywhere. The next day I decided to join these pieces of gum by using chalk. So the title of this work is Kisses, but you don’t know who is kissing who. The invisibility of the people is there, there are only the traces in the street where I am also putting them together. So, I did them on a very long street close to the museum in the city.
I am often attracted to the city, so I don’t sit in the studio. I try to capture the elements surrounding me in the city in different countries, so that’s why you see the variety in my practice, the multiple materials and media.
References:
[1] For useful information on Mohammed Kazem, and images of many of his works, see the website of Gallery Isabelle, who represent him in Dubai: https://www.ivde.net/artists/43-mohammed-kazem/
[2] Hassan Sharif (1951-2016) studied art in London in the early 1980s, and on returning to the UAE was instrumental in establishing conceptual art in the UAE and setting up the Emirates Fine Art Society in Sharjah where he mentored the generation of artists that included Mohammed Kazem.
[3] All of the notes for The Large Glass are in The Essential Writings of Marcel Duchamp, Salt Seller (London, Thames and Hudson, 1975: 13-102). Originally Paris, 1958.
[4] The poet Adel Khozam has also written Fil Daw’a Wal Del Wa Bainahoma Al Haya (In Light and Shadow and Life is Between Them), (Sharjah, 2000), on art in the UAE, and “Hassan Sharif” (Sharjah, 2016).
[5] Joseph Kosuth. “Art after Philosophy” in Studio International (October, 1969: 134-137, November 1969:160-161, December 1969: 212-213).
Fig. 2. Mohammed Kazem. Ink on Scratched Paper. 1993. Ink and scratched paper. 40.5 x 40.5 cm. Courtesy of the artist, from the collection of the Kazem Family
