Volume Issue |

Blurred Pictures and Sharp Words

Naeem Mohaiemen has had the distinction of having his work displayed
around the world, from the EU Human Rights Commission, to the Queen's
Museum of Art to the Finnish Museum of Photography. His current work at
Gallery Chitrak may not be the most prestigious location he has exhibited at,
but there is a politically charged feel about it, which feels distinctly out of
place in placid road 4 Dhanmondi. One is not quite sure what to expect from
an exhibition titled 'My Mobile Weighs a Ton' but a few seconds after
entering the gallery the smoke lifts and one can see the title for what it is.
In the introductory text he says, Standing in this political moment,
aesthetic perfection makes me queasy. That is a statement he lives up to,
as aesthetics are essentially thrown out the window with his scrapbook,
mobile phone pictures which have been blown up to possibly 100 times the
size they originally should have been. He continues in his introduction by
saying, My work is interested in damage/ panic. Politics come from the
context in which image war happens. Mobile phone photos-- blurry, low dpi,
poorly framed, no rule of thirds, colours burnt beyond ing
you quick access to make temporary provocations, without planning,
7 35 August 29, 2008
Exhibition
Nader Rahman
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A very trivial matter
Network available,
6:05PM
preparation or press card. It is interesting but not unusual that he refers to
his work in the third person and one feels it gives him some sense of
distance from his creations. Why that distance is needed or even necessary
are questions, which still seek answers.
He starts with grey duct tape on a wall recreating the no signal sign we are
all quite used to, what does catch the eye is that a time is given, 4:01 PM to
be precise. The continuation of that timeline is what holds some segments of
the exhibition together while often alienating the few pieces, which are
without one. The first picture is titled Bones of Xindian, and the bluish tinged
blurry image of people standing and gawking at what is an obviously
smashed up building is one that sets the tone for the the ride. By
4:20 we are viewing an empty chair behind a badly cracked glass window,
the caption reads, 'I don't want to sit anyway. 4:30 and it's now time for
international relations, as the clich goes, a picture speaks 1000 words but
for this case 94 will do. We are presented with an image of an unknown girl
holding up a phone, with the caption 'all you people look alike.'
The story with it reveals her name and how she bought a phone with Bangla
script on it in Manhattan, when asked if the person selling it was Bangali, her
heterogeneous reply was that all you people look alike. In the era of
globalisation, Walmart and the Big Mac all holding hands her reply spoke to
the economies of scale which have defined western speak and in this one
instance defined the Bangali as just another mass made product. The irony
or ironies is that the picture was no doubt taken with another mass produced
mobile phone. The exhibition was quickly becoming a pun within a pun
leaving people searching for the truth within a lie.
Beside Micheline and her Bangla phone is a curious set of 12 photographs
which proved to be screen shots of the artist as he videotaped himself
breaking his phone with a hammer, it was all done in under one minute. And
the remnants of his phone were also put up for inspection. It is a situation
ohhh that felt good, 4:45PM
we have all wished we were in, with a hammer in hand smashing our cell
phone to bits. This could quite logically have been the end to the exhibition,
a piece such as that requires an exclamation mark! But it was not so, the
next room posed two defensive teams against each other. The formations for
the teams were exactly the same 3-5-2 with what looked to be a midfield
battle. The ground was Dhaka and its surrounding areas as 22 robot toys
were pitted against each other on a large print out of from
Google Earth. This absurdist installation was in the artist's eye nothing more
than 'a trivial matter'. In the same room there is a quote from a Public
Enemy song, ending with the words 'My Uzi weighs a ton.' A play on words
makes us question, what in this exhibition could make the artist a Public
Enemy? And by the end it is simple to see that his mobile weighs a ton,
because he uses the pictures and words like an Uzi. Forgive the pun but in
more ways than one he is gunning for the truth.
Along the way there are quotes from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Mahmoud
Darwish who both interestingly passed away recently. They speak of
imprisonment and hope as he invigorates his work with a little political
wordplay. The timeline does not stop and neither do scenes of wreckage and
damage, from burning motorcycles to wrecked restaurants. It takes us all
the way up to 6:05 PM and then miraculously the signal is back as masking
tape on the wall now appears to show the return of cell phone activity. His
resolution challenged pictures do not stop as he photographs Shahan Ara
reading the news on Channel-i. It is clearly stated that the picture of her is
used with her permission and that distinctly takes away something from that
picture. The other were not posed, and no one's permission was asked when
using them, why was such an exception made here? The voyeuristic nature
of the exhibition is what draws people to it, we are all essentially trying to be
John Malkovich and in the midst of this he takes permission for a picture. It
was a bit of a let down, but let down or not the timeline continued, by 10:22
he is praying for his country and ends at 11:00 with a line that hides more
than it reveals, If you think this show's about mobile culture, the line must
be bad. Please hang up and call again.
At 11:00 PM everything falls into place and politics of a mobile phone and an
Uzi all become relevant. Mohaiemen tricks the audience from the start,
baiting them to believe this was a project into the exploration of the mobile
phone when in fact the images strung together reveal a different picture, an
incident actually. Damaged houses and shops, motorcycles on fire and no
signal between 4 and 6, think hard enough and it will come to you. Even
better, have a look at the exhibition (which is on until August 31) and it will
hit you harder than a rock thrown into a windowpane.
Copyright (R) thedailystar.net 2008