Mohammed Kazem “Memorizing by Means of Observing”

Taymour Grahne Gallery

poster for Mohammed Kazem “Memorizing by Means of Observing”

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“I am fascinated by collecting and documenting information about seemingly unimportant objects, traces of our present, within a particular environment.” – Mohammed Kazem

Taymour Grahne Gallery presents ‘Memorizing by Means of Observing,’ an exhibit of works by Emirati artist Mohammed Kazem.

Born in 1969 in Dubai, Mohammed Kazem is a pioneering conceptual artist in the United Arab Emirates, who represented his country at the most recent Venice Biennale. Influenced by his relationship with his close friend and mentor Hassan Sharif, his work touches on current global transformations in the social, political, and natural environments, and explores abstract ideas about the body, movement, space, and the natural elements. Often positioning himself within his artwork, Kazem focuses on geographical location and the substance of elements as a means of claiming his subjectivity, particularly in relation to the rapid modernization of the Emirates.

This exhibition takes the form of a survey, including selected important works from Kazem’s oeuvre seen together for the first time, starting with Photographs with Flags, works initiated in the 90s, to Kisses, his most recent body of work, taken on the streets of New York.

Since 1990, Kazem has created visual representations of intangible phenomena, such as sound and light, using a technique that he calls ‘Scratching’– vigorously scratching the surface of a piece of paper with scissors. He uses this technique to describe sounds in an abstract visual language, where lines and dots punctuate his works, and where his long ‘Scratched’ scrolls can be read like a visual phonograph.

In Kazem’s Photographs with Flags, the artist stands next to various flags, facing the landscape and bearing witness to the transformation of his environment. The flags that mark the space evoke urban expansion and stand in contrast to the artist’s position, which records a familiar, untouched environment on the verge of transformation. Similarly, Kazem’s Window series documents the construction of a high-rise building from his window over the course of two years, as it slowly began to block his view and even the sky.

Media

Schedule

from November 13, 2014 to December 20, 2014

Opening Reception on 2014-11-13 from 18:00 to 20:00

Artist(s)

Mohammed Kazem

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