Conetmporary, Booth F7:
RASHEED ARAEEN & MOHAMMAD ALI TALPUR
New monochrome paintings by Mohammad Ali Talpur will be displayed along side new minimalist sculptures by Rasheed Araeen.
ARAEEN
Rasheed Araeen (b.1935) is a pioneer of minimalism and a colossal figure in South Asian and Western art. His publications ‘Third Text’ and ‘Black Phoenix’ are seminal, as was ‘The Other Story’, an exhibition organised by Araeen at London’s Hayward Gallery in 1989. A champion of black artists in Britain from the 1960s onwards, his influence and importance within the
landscape of 20th century art cannot be overstated.
Influenced by his education as a civil engineer, Rasheed Araeen’s abstract sculptures, photographs and paintings feature geometric structures, grids and diagonals. His works explore the concepts of identity and stereotyping of non-Western artists by incorporating religious and cultural symbols from Pakistan, challenging the established Western view of art history. This latest body of work is also a new engagement with geometry as an ‘Islamic’ as well as universal form, as well as his longstanding affiliation with minimalism:
TALPUR
Throughout Mohammad Ali Taplur's (b.1976) career his focus has been calligraphy, abstraction and minimalism. The lines in Talpur’s work offer a multitude of experiences to the viewer. Taken at face value they possess an optical quality reminiscent of Riley and Vasareley, but possess none of the colourful nature of these artist’s works, instead Talpur restricts himself to a palette of black and white, a reference to the printed page of a book. The combination of line and colour discombobulates the eye, causing the viewer to see flashes of colour and movement within the monochrome canvases.
