naeem mohaiemen - experimenter.inexperimenter.in/web/exhibitions/naeem/exhibition.pdf · works have...

NAEEM MOHAIEMENThe Young Man Was (Contd.)

THE YOUNG MAN WAS (CONTD.)

Experimenter presents, Naeem Mohaiemen’s second solo at the gallery, The Young Man Was (contd). Since 2006, Naeem Mohaiemen has worked on a history of the 1970s radical left, through the prism of Bangladesh’s particular experience of these movements, while also spilling out into related movements in Germany, Japan, and the Middle East. The project has been described as “engagements with a revolutionary past meaningful in the sudden eruption of a revolutionary present” (Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, Bidoun). Some chapters were shown as The Young Man Was (a few chapters) at Experimenter in 2011. In that instalment, the 1975 assassination of Sheikh Mujib (I Have Killed…) and the 1977 hijack of Japan Airlines to Dhaka (United Red Army), served as bookends for the many ruptures of that era.

Several new chapters, on view in this show, move further backward in time, starting with the rumored CIA links to the 1975 assassination (Red Ant Motherchod, Meet Starfish Nation, photographs), moving to the 1974 anti- Maoist manhunts (Afsan’s Long Day, film, 40’), and then a global compact for military-led “stability” in response to left uprisings (The Year 1973 Created Many Problems for Imperialists, photographs). The final segment of this exhibition winds the chronology back to 1971, recreating of a site specific installation We The Living, We The Dead, which looks at the targeting of Hindu intellectuals during the war. The project draws from Humayun Azad, one of several post-1971 anti-establishment writers whom Naeem refers to repeatedly in his work. Azad’s angry challenge, “Amra Ki Ey Bangladesh Cheyechilam?”, is an anchor for many of Naeem’s political sentiments.

Each chapter on display here first appeared in smaller forms at other venues. In pulling them together to form a larger whole, The Young Man Was builds new connections that were not initially visible, even to Naeem himself. For example, the meaning of Red Ant’s insistence on the “must” of CIA rumors had one significance in 2009 when it was exhibited at Dhaka’s Asiatic Society (curated by Prof. Nisar Hossain of Dhaka University). At a distance of five years, and after the schism of 2013’s “Shahbag Movement,” an insistence on verifiability within Bangladesh history are now received with a much more skeptical eye. Similarly, the photographs of The Year 1973 acquire a different shade when paired with a viewing of Mel Chin’s animated film 9-11/9-11 (http://bit.ly/1safJeg), which reminds us of other anniversaries, other times . The set of chapters that make up The Young Man Was, as well as other work that looks at the years 1947-1970, were brought together for a survey show, Prisoners of Shothik Itihash, at Kunsthalle Basel this summer. The phrase “shothik itihash (correct history)” was used by Naeem ironically in a newspaper editorial, to indicate and indict the relentless, suffocating pressure to produce a state-sanctioned, power-pleasing, official history.

Naeem Mohaiemen works in Dhaka and New York, using combinations of essays, photography, film, and mixed media to research borders, wars, and belonging. Vijay Prashad described the projects as “not yet disillusioned fully with the capacity of human society” (Take on Art). Projects have shown at venues in Bangladesh, including Gallery Chitrak, Shilpakala Academy, Chittagong Film Center, and Dhaka Art Summit. Works have also shown at Museum of Modern Art (New York), Sharjah Biennial, Kiran Nadar Museum (Noida), etc. Mohaiemen’s work is in the permanent collections of the British Museum and the Tate Modern. Essays have been published in Sun Never Sets: South Asian Migrants in an Age of US Global Power (NYU), Lines of Control: Partition as Productive Space (Johnson Museum), Visual Culture Reader, 3rd ed. (Routledge), Sound Unbound (MIT Press), Granta (Pakistan Issue), Rethinking Marxism, etc. Naeem is also a Ph.D. student in Historical Anthropology at Columbia University.

2014The Young Man Was(contd.)

Installation view

2014The Young Man Was (contd.)Afsan’s Long Day

Film Still 40 minutes

201440 minutesThe Young Man Was (contd.)Afsan’s Long Day

Film Still

2014The Young Man Was (contd.)Afsan’s Long Day

[1974] Afsan’s Long Day is the latest film in a cycle of projects (The Young Man Was) about the 1970s ultra-left. each chapter explores a different facet of the radical left of the 1970s in Bangladesh, but also with linkages to Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. in this film, mohaiemen builds a series of inter- connected vignettes that travel with Jean Paul sartre, Joschka fischer, rote armee fraktion, and finally settles on the diaries of a Bangladeshi journalist who recounts an almost-execution.

Footnote

2009Archival Print8 in x 12 inSuite of 3

The Young Man Was (contd.)Red Ant Motherchod, Meet starfish Nation

2009Archival Print8 in x 12 inSuite of 3

The Young Man Was (contd.)Red Ant Motherchod, Meet starfish Nation

Detail

2009The Young Man Was (contd.)Red Ant Motherchod, Meet starfish Nation

Journalist Lawrence Lifschultz was expelled from Bangladesh for reporting on the Sepoy Bidroho (Soldiers Rebellion) trial. It was considered acceptable to investigate a potential CIA link to the first 1975 coup. That trail, after all, led “outside” the country – Libya or the United States.

The Sepoy coup, however, was a very different matter. It was the influence of Mao Tse-Tung’s “Chinese line” among a group of rebel army soldiers, but the tactics and results were homegrown. Made in Bangladesh.

The full implications were frightening for senior army officers. The internal structure was the most extreme of pyramids. If hundreds of thousands of junior soldiers started believing it was acceptable to break into the armory, loot guns, and start shooting senior officers, there would be no end to the fighting. The army would be torn apart by many rebellions.

Lifschultz’s sin was to have hinted at this possibility.

The worries proved justified. My friend, the Berlin-based architect, described General Zia as the man who restored order. But in fact, the military continued to be wracked by violence for another two years.

The attempted mutiny at Dhaka airport in 1977, during the hijack of Japan Airlines, was the last major coup attempt. The mass hangings after that event broke the back of future rebels.

Until 1981. When Zia was assassinated in Chittagong.

Footnote

2013Archival Print on paper7 in x 9 inSuite of 12 works

The Young Man Was (contd.)The Year 1973 Created Many Problems for the Imperialists

2013The Young Man Was (contd.)The Year 1973 Created Many Problems for the Imperialists

Of the many magazine stories from that period that brought Dhaka readers into global circuits of awareness, perhaps no other could have expressed more misplaced optimism than the one with this headline:

“The year 1973 created many problems for Imperialists.”

Then came 9/11.

September 11th, 1973. The Presidential Palace in Chile is bombed by its own Air Force. A defiant Salvador Allende refuses to surrender. The last press photograph shows Allende, democratically elected President, wearing a helmet and carrying a sub-machine gun that Castro had given him as a gift.

His dead body is later found inside the palace. Marquez wrote of the brutal ritual of a group of officers firing on his body together after his death. Finally a non-commissioned officer smashed his face in with his rifle butt.

Perhaps in that moment, the Dhaka editor thought US Imperialism had reached an apex of arrogance before the fall. Surely Allende’s dead body, like Che before him, would haunt the global military industrial complex forever? This final indignity would wake the global working class and set in motion a final push for world revolution.

The reality turned out cruelly different. The next six years were a tremendous consolidation of Imperial power, as one after another Latin American, African, and Asian country saw democratic governments removed and replaced by a parade of military juntas.

They would make the trains run on time. So we were told.

Footnote

2011Diary fragments and textSite-specific installation at Beauty Boarding, Old Dhaka

The Young Man Was (contd.)1971, We the Living, We the Dead

2011FootnoteThe Young Man Was (contd.)1971, We the Living, We the Dead

List of men taken away by Pakistan Army

Location: Beauty Boarding Guesthouse, Old Dhaka Date: March 28th, 1971.

Prahlad Chandra Saha (owner of Beauty Boarding)Santosh Kumar Das (businessman)Hemanta Kumar Saha (publisher)Ahindra Chowdhury Shankar (athlete)Sheetal Kumar Das (manager)Prabhat Chandra Saha (teacher)Nirmal Roy Khokababu (activist)Haradhan Barman (artist)Premlal Saha (businessman)Keshab Dao Agarwala (businessman)Shams Irani (filmmaker)Joseph (actor)Akhil Chakrabarty (chef)Nor Mohammad Molla (resident)Sadhan Chandra Roy (employee)

The army knew all the locations to target. Hindu artistes were leading figures in pre-1971 culture. Cut off the arts, checkmate disobedient nation.

Who died and for whom and whose country did it end up becoming? Is this the Bangladesh we wanted?

2011The Young Man Was (contd.)1971, We the Living, We the Dead

I am reminded of W.G. Sebald’s discovery in a graveyard: It was not possible to decipher all of the chiselled inscriptions, but the names I could still read—Hamburger, Kissinger, Wertheimer, Friedlander, Arnsberg, Auerbach, Grunwald, Leuthold, Seeligman, Frank, Hertz, Goldstaub, Baumblatt and Blumenthal—made me think that perhaps there was nothing the Germans begrudged the Jews so much as their beautiful names, so intimately bound up with the country they lived in and with its language.

On a quiet day with few visitors, Tarok Saha opened his father’s notebook to Shehzad Chowdhury. Nothing else had survived, only this. Addresses, phone numbers, names of his children, birth dates. Normal, daily life. The last entry is Tarok’s birthday: 29/12/63. Sunday.

There was one more sibling. Mita Saha. He meant to enter that name as well, but that birth was after. After independence…

The list of the 1971 dead come from a book published by Shudhi Sangha Trust. Some of the names have Shaheed in front of them. Others do not. But they were all taken away from Beauty Boarding on the same day. Seems an oversight.

Two names are missing, they were visitors and had not been recorded. Joseph is the only person without a surname. Later I learnt he was an actor. Now I understand. Like Rajjak, Kobori, Babita… hmm, Joseph?

Most names here are Hindu. You can’t say that, warns a friend, so many Muslims died too. Yes, yes, of course…

We, the living, perhaps born in the pages of the notebook or on the streets around this address, we live alongside the dead. You might say, the Shaheed. The phrase “Is this the Bangladesh we wanted” comes from a 2003 essay by Humayun Azad. A year later, Azad passed away, six months after surviving an assassination attempt.

Originally installed at Beauty Boarding in Old Dhaka, as part of Latitude Longitude 4, curated by Shehzad Chowdhury.

Diary full page image: Shehzad Chowdhury; Beauty Boarding installation image: Hana Shams Ahmed.Thanks: Tarok Saha, Syed Yousuf, Shabnam Nadiya.

Footnote

2014C.V www.shobak.org 2014

SELECT EXHIBITIONS

THE YOUNG MAN WAS: a history of the 1970s ultra-left. 2006-Ongoing

• The Young Man Was (contd.)

- Experimenter, Kolkata, 2014

• Prisoners of Shothik Itihash

- Kunsthalle Basel, 2014

• Afsan’s Long Day (1974 execution of ultra-left leader); video, 40 mins.

- “Migrating Identities,” Yerba Buena Center for Arts. 2013

• United Red Army (1977 Japan Airlines hijack); film, 70 mins.

- PS1 MOMA, New York. 2013; Kevorkian Center, NYU, New York. 2013’; “Dying of the light,” Jeu de Paume, Paris. 2013;

Kiran Nadar Museum, Delhi (Noida). 2013; FDF, Ljubljana. 2013; Beirut Beirut center, Cairo. 2013; Dhaka Art Center. Bengal

Gallery. BRAC University. Radius Center. Dhaka University. Dhaka. 2012; Chittagong Film Center. Chittagong. 2012; IDFA (#2

ranked global documentary film festival), Amsterdam. 2012; Hot Docs (#3 ranked global documentary film festival), Toronto.

2012; Images Festival (two-person installation w/ Silvia Kolbowski), Toronto. 2012; “A few chapters,” Experimenter gallery,

Kolkata. 2011; “Out of the Archive” (symposia), Tate Modern, London. 2011; “Uncanny Familiar: Images of Terror,”

c/o Berlin, Berlin. 2011; “Ucaklar, Trenler, Otomobiler ve Tekneler,” SALT, Istanbul. 2011; Sharjah Biennial, curated by Rasha Salti

& Haig Aivazian, United Arab Emirates. 2011; Momentum Nordic Biennial, Norway. 2011; 98 Weeks, Lebanon. 2011

• War of 666 vs. Sixty Million (1977 execution of Hans Martinn-Schleyer); video grid

- Finnish Museum of Photography. 2008

• I Have Killed Pharaoh (1975 assassination of Mujib); photographs, text, resin sculpture

- Dhaka Art Summit, Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka. 2012.


- Frieze Art Fair, London. 2010.

• Red Ant Mother**** Meet Starfish Nation (1975 assassination of Mujib); photography, text

- “Art Against Terrorism,” ECA gallery, Kolkata. 2009

- “Contemporary Bangladeshi Art,” Asiatic Society, Dhaka. 2008

- “Transmediale: New Media Festival,” Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. 2008

• The Young Man Was (1974 execution of ultra-left leader); live performance, 40 mins

- “Save The World,” Vooruit, Ghent. 2009

- “New Silent” series (Rhizome.org), New Museum, New York. 2009

- “Dictionary of War,” Muffathalle, Munich. 2006

• Der Weisse Engel (1971 war crimes); video, 8 mins.

- “Step across this line,” Asia House, London. 2011

- “Global House Video,” Gwangju Kunsthalle, Gwangju. 2011

• We the living we the dead (1971 war crimes); text, photos, site-specific installation

- “Latitude Longitude,” Beauty Boarding, Old Dhaka. 2011

VISIBLE COLLECTIVE: collective project on security panic & muslim “racial” profiling

• Disappeared in America, disappearedinamerica.org

- “Islam & the City,” Institut des Cultures d’Islam, Paris. 2011

- “Tools For Revolution,” Villa Romana, Florence. 2009

- “Dataesthetics,” Gallery Nova, Zagreb. 2006

- “How Does it Feel to be a Problem,” Project Row House, Houston. 2006

- “Peer Pleasure 2,” Yerba Buena, San Francisco. 2006

- Lounge, Foundation for Art & Creative Technology, Liverpool. 2005

- “A Knock At The Door,” LMCC & Cooper Union School of Art. 2005


- “Fatal Love: South Asian American Art Now,” Queens Museum of Art, New York. 2004

- “Nightcomers,” satellite project in Istanbul Biennial. 2007

- Whitney Biennial, as part of “Wrong Gallery” (Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni, Ali Subotnick). 2006

- “Asian Contemporary Video,” Little Theatre, Mumbai. 2006

- “Above Ground” (w/ Donna Golden), Tenement Museum, New York. 2006

- “Hopeless and Otherwise,” SOEX, San Francisco. 2008

NATIONAL SECURITY PANIC

• Live True Life or Die Trying (“Leftists” vs. “Islamists”); photography, video, text

- “Cartographies of Hope,” Dox Center for Contemporary Art, Prague. 2013

- “Between Utopia and Dystopia,” MUAC, Mexico City. 2011

- “Angel of History,” Laboral Centro Arte y Creacion Industrial, Gijon. 2009

- “Im/Possible Communities,” Shedhalle, Zurich. 2009

- “Freedom is Notional,” Experimenter, Kolkata. 2009

- “Live True Life or Die Trying,” Cue Art Foundation, New York. 2009

• Otondro Prohori, Guarding Who (military surveillance); photo box, slides, negatives

- “Trust,” ISEA Electronic Arts, Dortmunder, Germany. 2010

- “Chobi Mela V,” National Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka. 2009

• National Security Panic series; performance, video, drawings

- One Bad Google Ruins Your Day, performance, Transmediale, Berlin. 2008

• My Mobile Weighs a Ton; surveillance photo, toy soldiers, installation

- “Sedition,” White Box gallery, New York. 2009

- “My Mobile Weighs a Ton,” solo show, Gallery Chitrak, Dhaka. 2008

PARTITION HISTORIES

• Rankin Street, 1953; sandstone sculpture, vintage photos taken by M.A. Mohaiemen

- Art Basel, Switzerland. 2013


- India Art Fair, Delhi. 2013

- Devi Art Foundation, Delhi. 2013

• Kazi in Nomansland; stamp sculpture, archival photos; part of “Lines of Control”

- “The art of influence,” British Museum permanent collection exhibition. 2013.

- Nasher Museum of Art, Durham. 2013

- Herbert Johnson Museum, Ithaca. 2012

- British Council, London. 2011. Green Cardamom, London. 2009. Cartwright Hall, Bradford, 2009.

- VM Gallery, Karachi. 2008. The Third Line Gallery, Dubai. 2008

• Louis Kahn/Penn Station Kills Me; architectural installation, animation

- “Backroom,” Celda Contemporanea, Mexico City; Kadist, Paris. 2007

- “The Building Show” (w/ Gensler+Gutierrez+Blagojevic), Exit Art, New York. 2007

PUBLICATIONS

BOOKS

• Editor,ChittagongHillTractsintheBlindSpotofBangladeshNationalism.Dhaka:ManusherJonno,2010.

• Editor(w/LorenzoFusi),SystemError:Warisaforcethatgivesusmeaning.Milan:Silvana,2007.

VISUAL ESSAYS

• “Pulp:afiction,”ImaginaryArchives,Rotor,Graz,2013.TimeBank,FriezeArtFair,London,2009

• “BengalFire,”Paesaggio(the“Octopus”issue),BlauerHauseed.Venice,2013.

• “Magazinesintheforest,”ArtPapers,November2013.

• “Whenaninterpretercouldnotbefound,”TheSunNeverSets:SouthAsianMigrantsinanAgeofU.S.GlobalPower,New

York: NYU, 2012.

• “LiveTrueLifeorDieTrying,”VisualCultureReader(3rd.ed.).NewYork:Routledge,2012.

• “Ourrevolutionarypartyleader,”CybermohallahEnsemble,Berlin:Sternberg,2012.


• “Diagram,”DesFormesDeVie,FranckLeibovici.Paris:Laboratoiresd’Aubervilliers,2012

• “WhereNext,”WithreferencetoHansHaacke,HansDickel&OliverSchwartzed.Koln:Verlag,2011.

• “ReallySteven?,”BrokenEnglish,NewYork:Performa,2011.

• “KaziinNomansland,”Granta:ThePakistanIssue,JohnFreemaned.,2010.

• “Mymobileweighsaton,”Databrowser:art&cultureinageofsecurity,WolfgangSützl&GeoffCoxed.,2009.

• “NoExit”(w/GlenUrieta),SecretIdentities:AsianSuperheroComics,JeffYanged.,NewPress,2009.

• “Takemeoffyourdatabase,”RethinkingMarxism,Vol19,Number2,2007.

• “LeSaigonQuiz,”surveillanceproject(w/MichikazuMatsune),JournalBOL,Korea.2008

• “JforJotil,”Abecedariumforourtimes,RadhikaSubramaniamed.,ApexArt,2008.

ESSAYS

• “Wewishtoinformyou:AhistoryofBangladeshiCensorship,1972-2012,”Bangladesh’sChangingMediascape,Shoesmith

ed. University of Chicago Press, 2013.

• “Whilewaitingforthefence,”bookreviewofDelwarHussain’sBoundariesUndermined(Routledge);Economic&Political

Weekly, India, November 02, 2013.

• “SearchingforCallaloo,”bookreviewofAishaKhan’sCallalooNation(Duke);NewAge(Bangladesh),June2012.

• “TheSkinI’min,”bookreviewofVivekBald’sBengaliHarlem,Margins,2013.

• “BangladeshiPhotography:SocialReality’sTruthQuest”(Bengali),Kamra(Bangladesh),No.2,January2013.

• “Realreckoningon1971,”PartitionasProductiveSpace,IftikharDadied.Cornell:JohnsonMuseum,2012.

• “KaziinNomansland,”Seminar(India),AnanyaVajpeyi&AsimRafiquied.,2012.

• “FlyingBlind:Waitingforarealreckoningon1971,”Economic&PoliticalWeekly,India,Vol46#36,2011.

• “AsterixandtheBigFight:MuseeGuimetasProxyFight,”PlayingbyRules,ApexArt,StevenRanded.,2010.

• “FearofaMuslimPlanet:IslamicRootsofHipHop,”SoundUnbound,DJSpookyed.,MITPress,2008.

• “AcceleratedMedia&1971Genocide,”Economic&PoliticalWeekly,India,Vol43#04,01/26/2008.

• “Hyphenatedidentitiesandsecuritypanic,”HomeWorksIII:AForumonCulturalPractices.Beirut,2008.

• “Beirut:SilverPorscheIllusion,”MenoftheGlobalSouth,AdamJonesed.,ZedBooks,2006.

• “WhyMahmudcan’tbeapilot,”RejectingtheRulesofGenderandConformity,Sycamoreed.,SealPress,2006.

• “GuerrillasInTheMist:MaoistrevoltinBangladesh,”SaraiReader,No.06:Turbulence,Delhi:CSDS.2006.


• “DevilandDeepBlue:ShipbreakersofBangladesh”(w/RobertBailey),NewYork:AsiaSociety,2006.

VISUAL ART REVIEWS

• “FirozwantstofightTyson,”FirozMahmudartistbook,NinKi:UrgencyofProximateDrawing,2012.

• “Roadmovieasragetonic,”filmreviewof‘Udhao’(AmitAshraf),StarMagazine(Bangladesh),06/22/2012.

• “Womenontheverge,”filmreviewof‘Meherjaan’,DailyStar(Bangladesh),01/23/2011.

• “WhatImissmostissilence,”FouadElKourysolo,ThirdLine,Dubai,2009.

• “Admanbluesasartistliberation,”IndianHighway,curatedbyHans-UlrichObrist,Serpentine,UK,2008.

• “Nothing’sablankcanvas,anyhow,”RunaIslamsolo,Modena,2008.

• “Barbariansatthegate,”AgnieszkaKalinowskasolo,Ujazdowski,Warsaw,2008.

• “Theseguysareartistsandwhogivesadamn,”Jaminijournal,Dhaka,2007.

TRANSLATION (BENGALI – ENGLISH)

• “MujtabaAli:AmphibianMan,”RestOfNow,RanaDasguptaed.,Italy:Manifesta,2008.

• “Whatdoyouhaveonthemenuthat’stotallytasteless,”Dhaka:DailyStar,2007.

• “SyedMujtabaAli:Theenigmaoftransit,”ThebookofBangladeshifiction,KhademulIslamed.,2006.

• AllenGinsberg,BhorerKagoj.1997;FarhadMazhar,Himal,1998;KaziNazrulIslam,SharjahArt,2011.

SHORT ARTICLES

• “Historyishardwork,butarewewilling?,”ForumMagazine(Bangladesh),March2013.

• “StrandedontheBordersoftwoBengals,”NewYorkTimes,IndiaInk.11/15/2012.

• “Thelongingforareal,”Occupy,B3Verlag,FaustKulturEdition,Frankfurt.2012.

• “Ican’tfindDhaka,”StaedelschuleseriesEd1,NikolausHirsch&MarkusMiessened.,Sternberg,2012.

• “Prisonersofshotikitihash(correcthistory),”TheHindu,India.2011.

• “BeyondLibertyPlaza,”underpennameKhujeciTomai,TheNewEverydayblog,NicholasMirzoeffed.,2011.

• “StrongmanUndone:BangladeshreturnstoDemocracy,”ArtAsiaPacific,NewYork,2009.

• “Atthecoeddance,dilemmaofartistsascurators,”ArtLies:DeathoftheCurator,2008.


• “EverybodywantstobeSingapore,”LaBuenaVida,CarlosMottaed.,ArtinGeneral,2008.

• “MujibCoat:AssassinationandResidue,”Bidoun,Summer2008.

• “It’sAltafTailor:Muslimsexualityandpartitionriots[inHeyRam],”Bidoun,2006.

• Op-edsonMilitarization,Islamization,Minorityrights;DailyStar(Bangladesh).1996-2008.

• “WillPakistanbreakagain?”(Part1-5,inBengali),BhorerKagoj(Bangladesh),1994.

• Numerousop-edsonMilitarization,Islamization,Minorityrights.DailyStar(Bangladesh).1996-2008.

Widely cited op-eds are “To the polls, unless you name be Das, Tripura, Roy,” “Tattered Blood Green flag: Secularism in

crisis,” “The truth, twisting in the wind,” “I’m sorry, Choles Ritchil,” “Wounded nation, still the dreamer,” and “The Generals

in their Labyrinth.”

INTERVIEWS

• WithUrsulaBiemann,Geobodies,2012.

• RashaSalti,NaeemMohaiemen,RaniaStephan,MahaMaamoun,ManifestaJournal,#14,2012.

• “CollectivesinPost-2001NewYork,”AsianAmericanLiteraryReview,Vol2,Issue1.5,Fall2011.

• “SixShooters&NationalistStamps,”ArabStudiesJournal,Spring2010.

• CollectivesinAtomizedTime:art&activism(w/DougAshford).Barcelona:Idensitat,2009.

CITED IN

• Art&PoliticsNow,AnthonyDowneyed.,Thames&Hudson,2014

• DominikaBennacer,“PerformanceofwitnessinIslamicorthopraxy,”PerformanceResearch,September2008.

• SusetteMin,“TonalDisturbances,”SocialText,DukeUniversityPress,Vol26,No.1,Spring2008.

• JasbirPuar,TerroristAssemblages:HomonationalisminQueerTimes,DukeUniversityPress.2007.

CURATION

• SystemError:warisaforcethatgivesusmeaning:showwith40internationalartists.Co-curatedwithLorenzoFusi.Palazzo

Papesse, Siena, Italy. 2006

• TarequeMasud:JourneyInterrupted:firstNorthAmericanretrospectiveforleaderofBangladeshparallelcinemamovement.


sCo-curated with Sukhdev Sandhu, Catherine Masud. Tisch School of Arts, New York. 2013

COLLECTIONS

• IncollectionofBritishMuseum,TateModern,andprivatecollectionsinBangladesh(SamdaniFoundation),India(Khanna;

Menezes), UK (Tarawneh; Setarow), US (Mathur; Sharma), and United Arab Emirates (Vartanian).

SELECT PUBLIC TALKS

ACADEMIC TALKS

• Chair,“PrisonersofCorrectHistory”panel,Bangladeshpre-conference.Wisconsin-Madison.2013

• Panelist,“ShahbagandtheOpenveinsof1971”panel,SouthAsianconference.Wisconsin-Madison.2013

• PaperonethnographyofJapaneseRedArmy,“IlliberalPolitics”panel,AAA,Chicago.2013

• Paperon“Prisonersofcorrecthistory,”NYU&CornellUniversity.2012

• BeyondSecurity:Pakistan&Bangladesh,SouthAsiaInstitute,ColumbiaUniversity.2011

• NationalityinQuestion,ThirdGlobalSouthAsiaConference,NYU.2011

ARTIST TALKS & PANELS

• Expo1(TheFutureis…),PS1MOMA,NewYork.2013

• ManifestoforSlowTime:projectw/BlaineCook(Twitterleadprogrammer),Rhizome,NewMuseum.2012

• AMTArtistLecture;ParsonstheNewSchoolforDesign,NewYork.2012

• BrokenEnglish:Performa11:PerformanceArtBiennial,NewYork.2011

• SouthAsianLiterary&TheatreArtsFestival,SmithsonianInstitute,WashingtonDC.2010

• BAFArtSchool,XVAGallery,Dubai.2009

• AcrossHistories(anti-militaryorganizinginBangladesh),ArteEast&CabinetMagazine,Brooklyn.2009

• ChrisMarker&GrinningCat,APAStudies,NewYorkUniversity.2009

• Collaboration+Context,ArtInGeneral,NewYork.2008

• VisualizingSecrecy,StedelijkMuseum,Amsterdam.2007

• LiveImages2,WorkmanTheatre,Toronto.2007


• InteractorDie,V2CenterforUnstableMedia,Rotterdam.2007

• ContinentalDrift2,16BeaverGroup,NewYork.2006

• Faith&Identity,WhitworthGallery,Manchester.2006

• InEyeOfMediaStorm,HereArtsCenter,NewYork,2006

• PoliticsofImage,Staedelschule,Frankfurt.2005

• SchlossSolitude,Stuttgart.2005

• Who’sAfraidofPromitoBangla,KozmoCafe,Dhaka.2008

• Politicalart&hypermarkets,Charukala,DhakaUniversity.2008

• Artists&UrbanFracture;MongolbarerShobha:architecturestudents,Dhaka.2008

• VisibleCollective,activistart,andhyphenatedMuslimidentitiesafter9/11.

- Keynote speech: Art & Anthropology forum; James Madison University, Harrisonburg. 2006

- Performance Studies International, University of London (QM). 2006

- Hyphenated Identities, Mess Hall, Chicago. 2006

- Security Conversations, Location One Gallery, New York. 2006

- Artists on Art, Rubin Museum, New York. 2006

- Home Works III, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut. 2005

- Media Activism, Helsinki Process, Finlandia Hall, Helsinki. 2005

- Loyalty Tests, Bengal Gallery, Dhaka. 2005. Sarai Center, CSDS, Delhi. 2005

- Rewire Net, Pixelache, Kiasma Museum, Helsinki. 2004

REVIEWS

EXCERPTS

[UnitedRedArmy]

“But anyone acquainted with Mohaiemen or his work knows he is a keen but somewhat perverse polymath, whose possible subjects

of analysis run the gamut from newsworthy events of historical record to the sorts of minor cultural artifacts that constitute what

literary theorist Lauren Berlant has dubbed the “silly archive.”

– Murtaza Vali, Modern Painters, 02/2012


“Such considered construction reminds more of a Dadaist collage than a documentary.”

– Matt Millikan, “Are Documentaries Art?”, Arts Hub Australia

“It not only epitomized one of the exhibition’s crucial and entirely unscripted themes — how to make engagements with a

revolutionary past meaningful in the sudden eruption of a revolutionary present — it also doubled back on some of the biennial’s

grand and problematic claims, proposing art as a subversive act, for example, by questioning art’s potential compared to that of

political action or sustained activism.”

– Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, Bidoun, Summer 2011

“It’s a poem of a piece, beautifully executed, difficult to describe, not least because, as Naeem says himself, to do so and to sketch

themountainofwhichthefilmisaverysmall‘tip’,takeslongerthanthefilmandinevitablyundoesitasaworkwithrealpotency.

The piece revisits a time when hijackers said things like “we hurt bourgeois people” or “it is duty of revolutionary soldiers” but the

approach is pointed in its sophistication.”

– Guy Mannes-Abbott, Sharjah Art Foundation, 03/2011

“This precarious situation, where both men want to win but need to trust the other without knowing what is going on at the other

sideoftheline,iselevatedintributeofsomethinguniversal.Itbroadlyreferstoallthepersonalandpoliticalnegotiation[s]thattake

place in our lives.”

– Maaike Gouwenberg, Mister Motley, July 2011

“With this film, Mohaiemen creates an opportunity to ponder what drives radical insurrection and life threatening devotion to

extremist movements that promise a more ideal world.”

– Isabella Ellaleh Hughes, Art Asia Pacific, 06/2011

[IhavekilledPharaohIamnotafraidtodie]

“Most probably a political work, or maybe moral”– Le Monde (blog), 10/26/2010


[LiveTrueLifeorDieTrying]

“The admission sets the tone for his wry photo-and-text works, which gently question the efficacy of activism-- and of his own art

vis-a-vis political change.”

– Brian Boucher, Art in America, 01/ 2010

“They look like decent men, in the full flavor of youth, wanting something that the world has not given them thus far, but not yet

disillusioned fully with the capacity of human society.”

– Vijay Prashad, Take on Art, Issue 1, 2009

[FearofaMuslimPlanet]

“Some of the very best stuff in the back has hardly anything to do with sampling at all, including Mohaiemen’s searing treatise on the

interrelationship between hip-hop and Islam.”

– Dave Itzkoff, New York Times, 06/2008

SOLO REVIEWS

• UnitedRedArmy

- Murtaza Vali, “Introducing: Naeem Mohaiemen,” Modern Painters, February 2012.

- Shumon Bashar interview, Tank, Fall 2011.

• IhavekilledPharaohIamnotafraidtodie

- Frames interview, Art Newspaper, November 2010.

• LiveTrueLifeorDieTrying

- Brian Boucher, Art In America, 2010.

- Vijay Prashad, “Pictures of Clamor,” Take On Art (India), 2010.


• MyMobileWeighsaTon

- Sanam Amin, “Political activism is not Separate,” New Age (Bangladesh), 2009.

- Zubairi, “Aesthetic Perfection Makes Me Uneasy,” Shilparup (Bangladesh), 2009.

- Nader Rahman, “Blurred Pictures & Sharp Words,” Daily Star (Bangladesh), 8/5/2008.

• VisibleCollective:DisappearedinAmerica

- Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, “What Does Citizenship Mean?,” Daily Star (Lebanon), 2005.

- Grace Hsiang, “Discovered at UCI,” Jaded, Fall 2005.

- Jasmine Mir, “Reappearing Act,” Zink, Summer 2005.

GROUP REVIEWS

• UnitedRedArmy

- Oliver Basciano, “Future Greats 2012” (25 artists to watch), Art Review, 03/2012.

- Murtaza Vali, “Top Picks of 2011,” Art Forum (online), December 2011.

- Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, “Sharjah Biennial 10” Bidoun, #25, Summer 2011.

- Guy Mannes-Abbott, “On a day of words,” Sharjah Foundation, 03/18/11.

- Massimiliano Gioni, “Letter from Sharjah,” Domus, April 2011.

- Maaike Gouwenberg, “Momentum Biënnale,” Mister Motley (Netherlands), July 2011.

- Isabella Hughes, “Sharjah Biennial 10,” Art Asia Pacific, May/June 2011.

- November Paynter, “Sharjah Biennial,” Art Agenda, 03/24/11.

- Daniel Kunitz, “Intimate side of rebellion,” Art Info, 04/05/11.

• Warof666vs.sixtymillion

- Joshua Simon, “Killer Shot,” Programma (Israel), 09/09.

• LiveTrueLifeorDieTrying


- Premankur Biswas, “Inventing Freedom,” Indian Express, 11/27/09.

• KaziinNomansland

- Eliza Williams, “Lines of Control,” Frieze, 6/03/09.

- Beena Sarwar, “Post-colonial Partitions,” IPS (Pakistan), 4/23/09.

• FearofaBlackPlanet

- David Itzkoff, “Music Chronicle,” New York Times, 6/22/08.

• VisibleCollective:DisappearedinAmerica

- Ben Davis, “Ranciere For Dummies,” ArtNet, 8/17/06.

- Katie Kurtz, “Business as Unusual,” SF Bay Guardian, 4/06.

- Holland Cotter, “The New Bridge & Tunnel Crowd,” New York Times, 3/13/05.

- Stephen Wright, “Quand l’art devient design,” L’art Meme ,#30.

- Amy Finnerty, “South Asia as Artistic Foreground,” Wall Street Journal, 3/22/05.

- Nancy Princenthal, “Taking Liberties,” Art In America, 12/05.

- Miriam Souccar, “World Events Drive Islamic Art Surge,” Crain’s, 4/4/05.

- Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, “Tracking rendered bodies,” Daily Star (Lebanon), 11/25/2005.

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