“Fragile States” Exhibition
Brian Morris Gallery
This event has ended.
Owen Maseko (born in 1974 or 1975) is a Zimbabwean visual artist and installation artist, described as “one of Zimbabwe’s most prominent artists”.
In March 2010, he was arrested “less than 24 hours after his new exhibition opened” at the National Gallery in Bulawayo. His works referred to the massacres of Ndebele civilians during the Gukurahundi in the 1980s, carried out by forces loyal to Robert Mugabe. The exhbition, called “Sibathontisele” (“Let’s Drip On Them”), consisted in “three installations and twelve paintings”. Maseko was charged, under the Public Order and Security Act, with “undermining the authority” of President Robert Mugabe. He was also charged with “causing offence to persons of a particular race or religion”. The charges carried a possible twenty-year prison sentence.
He was granted bail.In September, his trial was postponed pending consideration by the Supreme Court as to “whether criminalising creative arts infringes on the freedom of expression and freedom of conscience”, as guaranteed by the Constitution. A magistrate granted an application to the Supreme Court on constitutional grounds, and on the grounds that Maseko’s art depicted events which had unquestionably happened.
Maseko was second runner up for the Freedom to Create Prize in 2010, for his exhbition on the Gukurahundi killings
ZUNAR has been drawing editorial cartoons for the past 20 years in Malaysia.
ZUNAR uses his drawing pen as a weapon to fight state corruption and abuse of power. He has turned the spotlight on local public-interest issues such as the politically explosive (literally!) and unsolved murder of a Mongolianwoman, the political conspiracy against the former-deputy-prime-minister-turned-Opposition-Leader Anwar Ibrahim, the domineering wife of the present prime minister, and the shady Scorpene submarine purchases that are now being investigated in France.
The government-controlled national newspapers have blacked-out his cartoons since and he has to resort to publishing them online.
ZUNAR holds that when one’s country is facing a moral crisis and beset by corruption, abuse of power and violations of human rights, then it is one’s duty to take a firm stand against those responsible for it.
As a cartoonist, Zunar feels compelled to show this stand in his work. There are no two ways to it: He must take the risk of fighting for change. Drawing cartoons, to him, becomes a fight for justice. As he puts it, “How can I be neutral, when even my pen has a stand?”
He has been arrested and detained for drawing cartoons that challenged official views.
Seven of his books are banned by the Malaysian government, his office has been raided twice by enforcers, the printing factories that print his books are constantly raided and vendors throughout the country are often warned not to sell his books.
Iranian cartoonist Kianoush Ramezani is among some 150 Iranian intellectuals, media workers, journalists, and bloggers who were forced to leave Iran following the postelection crackdown last year. According to Amnesty International, as many as 5,000 people were arrested in Iran following weeks of antigovernment demonstrations.
Ramezani is the founder of Iran’s first Cartoonist Society and the president of the Cartoonist Society of Gilan. He spoke to RFE/RL correspondent Golnaz Esfandiari about why he fled his homeland and what it means to live in exile.
Khaled Barakeh raduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Damascus University (2005) and holds an MA from Funen Art Academy in Denmark (2010). His works have been presented in many countries worldwide. Currently he is about to finish his Meisterschueler with Simon Starling’s class in the Stadelschule in Frankfurt am Main.
Khaled originally comes form Golan Heights in Syria, where the conflict has been going on since 1967.
Political Issues were formative in his personality, particularly during his mandatory service in the Syrian military. Painting the President’s picture over and over again, means he knows how art is in itself a weapon, and this led to his decision to use that weapon to help those who have been victimised by it and to make it a medium of change. When the revolution began two years ago Khaled was in Damascus, taking part in the ‘peaceful struggle’, using art to make real change. In this dire time, the limits of creativity have been broadened out of necessity to survive for many Syrians. As suppression grows and intensifies, the role of the
responsible artist expands too, expanding into the roles of activist, artist and that of a journalist; leading to new ways to communicate and change the narratives that have been imposed by the suppressors.
Presently, he is part of many civil groups in a bid to help the victims of war, one of which boasts a membership of over 400, including artists, writers and filmmakers. Their voluntary work serves to maintain the peaceful nature of the revolution, and to temper the anger of the people, to avoid attacks and perhaps even civil war; as they can see first-hand how an armed resistance can destroy a nation, but they need to preserve the rights of those in resistance to the dictatorship.
Khaled believes that the overlap between his personal and academic background, has had a profound effect on his artistic practices. His works often include references to political issues, and tend to deal with ‘current and pertinent concerns’
revolving around identity, cultural and historical matters and even power structures.
For further information see:
www.khaledbarakeh.com
Born in Bandung in 1961 and educated at the Bandung Institute of Technology in the early 1980s, Arahmaiani continued her studies at the Paddington Art School in Sydney, Australia and the Academie voor Beeldende Kunst in Enschede, Holland. Her multi-disciplinary practice spans performance art, video, installation, painting, drawing, dance, music and poetry. Opposed to the estrangement of art and life in the academy, her early passage into art practice took place in the streets of Bandung where, together with a group of likeminded friends, she began to make performances with a strong social consciousness—what she termed “easy-art” as opposed to the prevailing academically conservative “difficult-art”. Developing from this trajectory, she is now one of a small number of Indonesian artists recognized and active in the international contemporary art circuits, having participated in the Venice, Gwangju and Sao Paulo biennales, the Asia-Pacific Triennial, as well as noted international-scale exhibitions such as Cities on the Move and Global Feminism in the last 12 years.
Malaysian artist and art critic, Ray Langenbach, describes Arahmaiani as a “border intellectual”, that is, an individual who presents herself and her ideas, emerging from local and national contexts, as art and cultural expressions on a transnational platform, which are sometimes understood, in more critical terms, as marketable art and cultural commodities pliable to the ambitions and discourses of an increasingly transnational artworld. Her travels, guided by desires to seek more receptive contexts for her art practice and for learning and immersing in different religious and cultural contexts, have been extensive, taking her from high European and American metropolitan centers to local communities within Southeast Asia where every effect of globalization is starkly seen and felt. In these diverse contexts, she has been continuously sharpening her observations and fashioning staunchly idealistic articulations on a range of issues revolving around globalization, religion, feminism, sexuality, and geopolitical Islam
Chaw Ei Thein was born in Rangoon in 1969 and graduated from Rangoon University with a Bachelor of Law degree in 1994. Her artistic recognition started at an early age through the numerous international art awards that she received. With her father, Maung Maung Thein, as her art teacher and mentor, Chaw’s art practice has developed into a diverse art practice. Highly regarded as a painter and a conceptual as well as a performance artist, her international career is highly profiled as she candidly portrays the contradictions and conflictions of her socio-political environment. Her feminist approach to her art is both gracious and candid and has earned her accolades and recognition as one of the most important contemporary artists to emerge from Burma. The recipient of the Elizabeth J McCormack and Jerome I Aaron fellowship in connection with the Asian Cultural Council in New York, she has lectured and exhibited extensively in and outside of Burma. Amongst her numerous and most notable achievements include participation in the 2008 Singapore Biennial, 2009 Open Studios Exhibitions, International Studio and Curators Program in New York as well as several performance works together with Htein Lin in Burma and at Asia House, London in 2007. Chaw Ei Thein currently lives and works in New York.
Issa Nyaphaga was born in Douala, Cameroon (central Africa) in 1967 and grew up in the small village of the Tikar tribe, called Nditam, in the very heart of Cameroon’s equatorial forest. As a child of the fields, Issa was in contact with the earth and nature through artistic practice.
”As a young artist, it wasn’t enough to be what I was. I needed to do more, getting involved in something significant and crazy”, Issa said.
After High School, Issa started working as a political cartoonist and reporter in a weekly satirical newspaper, Le Messager Popoli. His opposition to the political regime in Cameroon, led him to several trips to jail in 1994 for his publications.
Issa divides his time between Paris and the United States where he shares his work and advice with students and young artists. Issa also has been working on the development of a philosophical concept called “Urban Way,” in which he paints his body and stages live performances that include live music. It is an act of protest against not being able to return home freely.
Most recently, Issa has been developing a community radio and health education project in his hometown called Radio Taboo which will launch in the Summer of 2013.
Kardash Onnig born in 1941 in Lebanon of Armenian heritage. Moved to New York City in 1958 to attend The Art Students League and within a decade became a creative force within the emerging field of multi-media communication. He was an active protester of the Armenian Genocide and rejected the cultures collective identity as a victim. Onnig has published several books including “Dix Sens Trisensuelle”, “Liberation from Freedom”, “Kardah Onnig Toymaker” and “Kardash Onnig: Quarternary Synergism”
He is a practitioner who’s intent is to evolve one’s being, so that transferences with others is three dimensional, manifesting the 4th dimension.
Lives and works in Stanfordville New York, toy maker, wood and stone carving, sculpture author to several books.
Media
Schedule
from April 25, 2013 to May 17, 2013