Structures, Struggles and Collective Creativity: Interview with Rasheed Araeen
By Clara Tang
Rasheed Araeen is known as an artist-activist heavyweight who pushes boundaries—in his artworks, in institutional critique and of the art world’s exclusivity. As the founder of the critical journals Third Text and Black Phoenix, the British-Pakistani artist has given voice to artists considered to be on the peripheries, particularly women and minorities in the West, and has become an important advocate for art discourse that detaches itself from a Eurocentric point of view. Late last year, Araeen’s first major traveling retrospective exhibition was staged at Eindhoven’s Van Abbemuseum, providing an overview of his 60-year-long career. The show delivers Araeen’s history of active confrontation of exclusion in the art world, as well as his political action and collective engagement in art, from his early years in Karachi to his move to London in the 1960s, and even his most recent works. To coincide with the extensive presentation, ArtAsiaPacific spoke to the artist about his artistic development and other endeavors since his days in Pakistan.
Portrait of RASHEED ARAEEN. Photo by Socrates Mitsios. Courtesy the artist and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.
