"RASHID ARAIN. RETROSPECT" Automatic translate

The first Russian retrospective of Rashid Arain (born 1935, Karachi, Pakistan) will acquaint viewers with sixty years of intense and varied work by the artist. Rashid Arain earned an exceptional position of unquestioned authority in art for many years of struggle for justice - both through artistic means, through universal geometric shapes, and political, through journalism, performances and exhibition projects that denounce racism.

Exhibition “Rashid Arain. Retrospective ”is divided into six chapters. The first chapter - “Beginning” - shows the artist’s early studies, made back in Karachi, where, in addition to the skills of academic drawing, Arain mastered the techniques of post-impressionism. In 1964, the artist moved to London to professionally engage in art. The first sculptures of Arain, presented in the chapter "Geometry and Symmetry", are among the earliest examples of minimalism in Western art. Masterfully using local colors and abstract forms, Arain is inspired by Soviet constructivism and strives to make art that everyone understands. The artist quickly gained popularity and already in 1969 became the first sculptor to receive the prestigious John Moorez Prize awarded to painters.

The 1970s were a time of cultural change for Great Britain: young artists, musicians, scientists from former colonies demanded respect for their past and present. Rashid Arain did not stand aside. The chapter “Awakening of the Political” shows how the artist addressed the problems of racism both within the art world and beyond. Since 1975, Arain began to actively criticize the situation in the art of Great Britain and in 1977 he collected the multimedia project Devil Packs, criticizing stereotypes about people of the third world, which included performance, video, music and crime chronicle. In 1977, Arain also founded Black Phoenix, a magazine dedicated to third-world culture and art. He increasingly uses his native language, Urdu, in his works as a way to tell a personal story and not dissolve into globalization.

The chapter “The Way to an Integral Statement” introduces the viewer to the works of the 1980s. During this period, Arain for the first time combined poster political motifs and a sculpture of minimalism in the space of one work. Its characteristic structures are adjacent to found images from Pakistani magazines, shots of a military chronicle, and references to Andy Warhol. Soon, publishing projects distract Arain from art as such. Since the mid-1980s, Arain has been actively developing the “Archive and Information Center for Visual Arts of Afro-Asian Peoples”, which exists on a non-profit basis. In 1987, Arain became the editor-in-chief of the Third Text art magazine, to which a separate chapter is devoted to the exhibition - The Reading Room. In 1989, the artist oversees the “Another Story” exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London, which was attended by 24 British artists of African, Caribbean and Asian descent. Both Third Text and The Other Story are inspired by the struggle for equality in the art world. Arain is convinced that the descendants of the peoples colonized by the empires of Europe should be included in the historical and artistic canon in accordance with their contribution to the art of modernism, otherwise there can be no talk of any history of art.

In the past five years, Arain’s art has been rediscovered around the world. Evidence of this is his participation in the exhibition documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens (2017), the 57th Venice Biennale (2017), as well as personal exhibitions in the Tate Modern Gallery (London, 2013), Sharjah Art Fund (UAE, 2014), museums and galleries of Lima (Peru, 2013), Karachi (2014), Dubai (2015), Hong Kong (2015) and Sao Paulo (2016). Against the backdrop of increased interest, the artist is doing new works (the chapter "Return to the Origins") that harmoniously combine minimalism, oriental decorativeness and bold colors of Cezanne and Matisse.

All his life, Rashid Arain dreamed of an art international - a universal brotherhood of artists, where skin color and position in society are not important. Especially for the Garage Atrium Commissions program, Arain is preparing a sculpture “Ommazh Tatlin”, conceived by him back in 1968. Paying tribute to the history of the Russian avant-garde, Arain turns to the “Monument of the Third International” by Vladimir Tatlin, in which he sees an occasion for his own statement. By simplifying the shape of the tower, the artist emphasizes the versatility of its structure.

In addition, in the last weeks of the exhibition, the Garage Museum will present Arain’s previously unrealized performance Disco Sailing (1970s), a unique combination of geometric abstraction and qigong gymnastics.

The exhibition is timed to coincide with the publication of a collection of texts by the artist, which will cover several decades of his literary and critical work and will include the most famous works, including “Preliminary Notes to the Black Manifesto” (1975–1976) and Ecoesthetics. Manifesto for the 21st Century ”(2008–2010).

Within the framework of the exhibition “Rashid Arain. Retrospective ”on the mezzanine of the Museum will be presented the project of the artist and researcher Vali Mahluji“ Atlas of Culture ”- a panorama of the twentieth-century intellectual history that reflects the artistic, political, ethical and spiritual processes in the countries of the“ global South ”and how these processes are inextricably linked with Western culture world, sometimes ahead of her or determining its development.

Exhibition “Rashid Arain. Retrospective ”was first shown at the Van Abbe Museum (Eindhoven, Netherlands).