Naeem Mohaiemen Explained

Naeem Mohaiemen (born 1969) uses film, photography, installation, and essays to research South Asia's postcolonial markers (the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948 and the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971). His projects on the 1970s revolutionary left explored the role of misrecognition within global solidarity.^{[1] [2]}

Education

Mohaiemen received a PhD in anthropology in 2019 from Columbia University and is an Associate Professor of Visual Arts^[3] there. He received BA in economics and concentration in history from Oberlin College in 1993. He was a member of Oberlin College's Board of Trustees (1994–1996).

Films

• Tripoli Cancelled (2017), premiered at Documenta 14 in Athens.^[4] British premiere at the British Film Institute London Film Festival.^[5] American premiere at Museum of Modern Art, New York.^[6]
• Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017), premiered at Documenta 14 in Kassel (which derives from The Young Man Was project). British premiere at Tate Britain as part of the 2018 Turner Prize shortlist.^[7] American premiere at Art Institute of Chicago.^{[8] [9]}

The Young Man Was

• Part 4: Abu Ammar is Coming (2016) – examines a photograph of five men who were supposedly Bangladeshi and affiliated with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in the early 1980s, questioning how contemporary relations between the involved nations might be reshaped.^[10]
• Part 3: Last Man in Dhaka Central (2015) – premiered at the 56th Venice Biennale as part of "All The World's Futures" curated by Okwui Enwezor.^[11]
• Part 2: Afsan's Long Day (2014) – premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as part of "Doc Fortnight".^[12] It had a festival premiere at Oberhausen^[13] and a British premiere at the British Film Institute London Film Festival.
• Part 1: United Red Army (2011)^[14] – about Japan Airlines Flight 472 (1977) Hijacking in Dhaka, premiered at Sharjah Biennial, Hot Docs,^[15] and International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA),^[16] has shown at The New Museum^[17] and is in the permanent collection of the Tate Modern.^{[18] [19]}

Prisoners of Shothik Itihash

• Der Weisse Engel (2008)
• Rankin Street 1953 (2009)

Visible Collective: Disappeared in America (2002–2006)

• Patriot Story (2004, with Jawad Metni)
• Fear of Flying (2005, with Anjali Malhotra)
• Lingering: Twenty (2005, with Sehban Zaidi)
• Invisible Man (2006)
• White Teeth (2011)

Exhibitions

Chapters from Mohaiemen's project on the 1970s revolutionary left ("The Young Man Was") have exhibited at the Mahmoud Darwish Museum, Gyantapas Abdur Razzaq Foundation, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Bengal Foundation Shilpalay, Chobi Mela, Documenta 14, Kiran Nadar Museum, Museum of Modern Art New York, British Museum, Tate Britain, New Museum (New York),^[20] Frieze Art Fair (London),^[21] MUAC Mexico City,^[22] the 56th Venice Biennial, and the Lahore, Sharjah, Marrakech, and Eva (Ireland) Biennials.

Mohaiemen co-founded Visible Collective,^[23] a collective of New York-based artists and lawyers investigating post-9/11 security panic. Visible's work exhibited internationally, including the 2006 Whitney Biennial of American Art ("Wrong Gallery" room)^[24] and L'institut des cultures d'Islam in Paris.^[25]

His solo projects have looked at military coups ("My Mobile Weighs A Ton" at Dhaka Gallery Chitrak),^[26] surveillance ("Otondro Prohori, Guarding Who?", Chobi Mela V at Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy),^[27] Indian partition ("Kazi in Nomansland" at Dubai Third Line),^[28] architectural nationalism ("Penn Station Kills Me" at Exit Art),^[29] and dueling leftist and Islamist politics ("Live True Life or Die Trying" at Cue Art Foundation, New York).^[30]

Writing

Mohaiemen is author of Prisoners of Shothik Itihash.^[31] He edited the anthologies Between Ashes and Hope: Chittagong Hill Tracts in the blind spot of Bangladesh nationalism,^[32] Collectives in atomised time,^{[33] [34]}

He was the primary critic of Dead Reckoning, a book by Sarmila Bose on the 1971 war of Bangladesh. His response was cited by the BBC^[35] and published in Economic & Political Weekly ("Waiting for a real reckoning on 1971").^[36] Bose responded to his remarks in the same periodical, followed by a rebuttal from Mohaiemen.^[37]

Essays on Bangladesh history include"Muktijuddho: Polyphony of the Ocean",^[38] "Accelerated Media and the 1971 Genocide",^[39] "Musee Guimet as Proxy Fight",^[40] "Mujtaba Ali: Amphibian Man" (The Rest of Now, Rana Dasgupta ed.),^[41] "Mujib Coat" (Bidoun journal),^[42] and "Everybody wants to be Singapore" (Carlos Motta’s The Good Life).^[43] He wrote the chapter on religious and ethnic minorities in the Ain o Salish Kendro Annual Report for Bangladesh.^[44]

Essays on diaspora include "Known unknowns of the class war" (Margins, Asian American Writers Workshop),^[45] "The skin I'm in: Afro-Bengali solidarity and possible futures" (Margins, Asian American Writers Workshop),^[46] "Beirut, Silver Porsche Illusion" (Men of the Global South, Zed Books),^[47] "Why Mahmud Can’t Be a Pilot" (Nobody Passes: Rejecting the rules of Gender and Conformity, Seal Press),^[48] and "No Exit" (Asian Superhero Comics, New Press).^[49]

Essays on culture include "Islamic Roots of HipHop" (Sound Unbound, MIT Press; Runner Up for Villem Flusser Theory Award),^[50] "Adman blues become artist liberation" (Indian Highway, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist)^[51] and "At the coed dance " (Art Lies: Death of the Curator).^[52]

Awards

• 2014: Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation^[53]
• 2018: Turner Prize nominee^{[54] [55]}
• Shortlisted for the 2009 Villem Flusser Award and the 2019 Herb Alpert Award.

External links

• • Academia
• Conversation about Naeem Mohaiemen's methodology and artistic practice, 2019

Notes and References

1. Web site: Artists' Film Club: Naeem Mohaiemen: United Red Army (The Young Man Was, Part I) + Q&A. archive.ica.art. en. 2020-01-05.
2. Web site: Naeem Mohaiemen. www.documenta14.de. en. 2020-01-05.
3. Web site: Columbia University Visual Arts . Columbia University . 31 August 2021.
4. Tialiou. Kelley. June 2019. Inhabiting Liminality: Cosmopolitan World-Making in Naeem Mohaiemen's Tripoli Cancelled. Humanities. 8. 2. 117. 10.3390/h8020117. free.
5. https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=materialevidenceamajorminorhistory
6. Web site: Naeem Mohaiemen: There Is No Last Man. The Museum of Modern Art. en. 2019-01-14.
7. Web site: Turner Prize 2018 – Exhibition at Tate Britain. Tate. Tate. en-GB. 2019-01-14.
8. Web site: Naeem Mohaiemen: Two Meetings and a Funeral. The Art Institute of Chicago. en. 2019-01-14.
9. Wang. Dan S.. September 2019. Two Meetings and a Funeral. Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism. 46. 3. 89–94. 10.1525/aft.2019.463014.
10. Web site: Naeem Mohaiemen Artworks, Exhibitions, Profile & Content. 2019-03-04. ocula.com. en. 2019-03-04.
11. Web site: Artists. La Biennale di Venezia. https://web.archive.org/web/20150402121129/http://www.labiennale.org/en/art/exhibition/artists/. 2 April 2015. dead. 18 April 2015. Venice Biennial Artist List
12. http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/20256
13. http://www.kurzfilmtage.de/en/press/press-releases/festival-2014/the-competitions-of-the-60th-festival/?print=1&cHash=1b3390d50748410af9ec1c90133f1230
14. http://www.sharjahart.org/blog/2011/march/notes-from-a-biennial--on-a-day-of-words-one Guy Mannes-Abbott, Sharjah Art Foundation, 18.03.2011
15. http://www.hotdocs.ca/film/title/young_man_was_part_1_united_red_army
16. http://www.idfa.nl/industry/tags/project.aspx?id=C55E4F5A-CFBE-414E-8B28-9447274066DE&tab=-
17. http://archive.newmuseum.org/index.php/Detail/Occurrence/Show/occurrence_id/1409
18. https://vimeo.com/32672952
19. http://www.londonconsortium.tv/?p=217
20. http://zine.artcat.com/2009/01/naeem-mohaiemen-at-new-musuem.php ArtCat Zine – Events – Naeem Mohaiemen at New Museum
21. http://lunettesrouges.blog.lemonde.fr/2010/10/26/retour-a-frieze/ "Retour à Frieze", Le Monde, 26 October 2010
22. Concepción Moren, "arte, ficciones, política y violencia", El Economista, 20 June 2011. Eleconomista.com.mx (30 June 2011). Retrieved on 12 November 2011.
23. http://disappearedinamerica.org/press/ Press
24. http://whitney.org/www/2006biennial/artists.php?artist=WrongGallery "Down by Law", curated by Wrong Gallery
25. http://www.institut-cultures-islam.org/ici/festival-des-cultures-d-islam/expositions-80/collectif-visible.html Collectif Visible – Institut des Cultures d'Islam
26. http://thedailystar.net/magazine/2008/08/05/exhibition.htm Nader Rahman, "Blurred pictures and sharp words", Star Weekend Magazine, 29 August 2008
27. http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=76613 Jamil Mahmud, "Naeem Mohaiemen takes a look at fear mongering", The Daily Star, 20 February 2009
28. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45691 Beena Sarwar, "Artists Take On Post-Colonial Partitions", IPS, 6 February 2009
29. http://www.exitart.org/exit_archive/history/2007.html History | 2007
30. http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/reviews/naeem-mohaiemen/ Brian Boucher, Art in America, 1/15/2010
31. Book: Naeem Mohaiemen . 2014 . Naeem Mohaiemen: Prisoners of Shothik Itihash . Kunsthalle Basel . 978-3-85562-030-2.
32. http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2010/09/01/book.htm Samya Kullab, "Championing Pahari Rights", Star Weekend Magazine, 17 September 2010
33. http://idensitat.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58:collectives-in-atomised-time&catid=26:ideng-publicacions&Itemid=27 Collectives in Atomised Time, with Doug Ashford, Idensitat Press
34. Book: Lorenzo Fusi . Naeem Mohaiemen . 2007 . System error: war is a force that gives us meaning . Silvana . 978-88-366-0842-3.
35. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13417170 Alastair Lawson, "Controversial book accuses Bengalis of 1971 war crimes", BBC, 16 June 2011
36. http://www.bricklanecircle.org/uploads/Flying_Blind.pdf Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 46 No. 36, 3 September 2011
37. http://www.bricklanecircle.org/uploads/Bose_and_Naeem.pdf Sarmila Bose, "Dead Reckoning: A Response". Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 46 No. 53, 31 December 2011
38. News: Naeem Mohaiemen . 9 April 2016 . Muktijuddho: Polyphony of the Ocean . The Daily Star.
39. http://www.thedailystar.net/forum/2011/December/accelerated.htm Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 43 No. 04, 26 January 2008
40. Book: Naeem Mohaiemen . 2010 . Asterix & the Big Fight: Proxy Wars, Temporary Coalitions . Steven Rand . Playing by the Rules: Alternative Thinking, Alternative Spaces . Apexart . 978-1-933347-43-1.
41. http://www.silvanaeditoriale.it/catalogo/prodotto.asp?id=2390 Silvana Editoriale
42. http://www.bidoun.org/magazine/14-objects/ Bidoun #14
43. Book: Naeem Mohaiemen . 2008 . Hoggole Singapore Hoibar Chai . Carlos Motta . The Good Life . Art in General . New York . 978-1-934890-18-9.
44. Book: Naeem Mohaiemen . Rights of Religious Minorities . Sara Hossain . Human Rights in Bangladesh 2008 . Ain o Salish Kendra . https://web.archive.org/web/20100601233000/http://www.askbd.org/hr_report2008/15_Religious.pdf . 1 June 2010.
45. aaww.org/known-unknowns Asian American Writers Workshop
46. http://aaww.org/the-skin-vivek-bald/ Margins/ Asian American Writers Workshop
47. Book: Naeem Mohaiemen . 2006 . The Migrant (2) . Adam Jones . Men of the Global South: A Reader . Zed Books . 978-1-84277-513-4.
48. Book: Naeem Mohaiemen . 2010 . Why Mahmud Can’t Be a Pilot . Matt Bernstein Sycamore . Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity . Basic Books . 978-0-7867-5057-3.
49. Book: Naeem Mohaiemen . 2009 . No Exit . Jeff Yang . Jerry Ma . Keith Chow . Parry Shen . Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology . Perseus Distribution Services . 978-1-59558-398-7.
50. http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11401&mode=toc Sound Unbound – Table of Contents – The MIT Press
51. http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2008/11/indian_highway_catalogue.html Indian Highway Catalogue SOLD OUT
52. http://www.artlies.org/issue.php?issue=59&s=1&p=statement A Contemporary Art Quarterly
53. http://www.gf.org/fellows/17635-naeem-mohaiemen 2014 Guggenheim Fellows- Creative Arts-Film-Video
54. https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/turner-prize-2018/naeem-mohaiemen 2018 Turner Prize Nominees
55. News: Adrian. Searle. 2018-12-05. Turner prize 2018 review – no painting or sculpture, but the best lineup for years. The Guardian. 24 September 2018. 0261-3077.