Basar was born in Pabna, Bangladesh, in 1974. His mother Dilruba Basar emigrated with him to the United Kingdom, to join his father, Abul Basar, who had already settled to work as a medical psychiatrist. The family lived in several Northern towns and cities until they settled in Blackpool in 1985. Basar attended Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University as undergraduate between 1993 and 1996. Between 1998 and 2000 he studied at the AA School, London. In 2005 Basar was invited by Eyal Weizman to join a new doctoral program within the Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London. Since 2009, Basar has lived in Dubai, Vancouver, Berlin, Beirut, Istanbul, and travelled extensively through the Middle East.
Do You Often Love with Success and with Fame? was a 2012 book written by Basar and published by the Dubai gallery Traffic. It consisted only of rhetorical questions, one per page, and mimicked a classic leather-bound pocket diary.
Edited
Drone Fiction and Autobiography were two volumes edited by Shumon Basar and H.G. Masters, and published by Globe Books in 2013 as part of the Global Art Forum, Dubai.
Translated By was edited by Charles Arsene-Henry and Shumon Basar, designed by Zak Kyes and published by Bedford Press in 2011. It accompanied a touring exhibition and featured text contributions from writers Douglas Coupland, Rana Dasgupta, Hu Fang, Julien Gracq, Jonathan Lethem, Tom McCarthy, Guy Mannes Abbott, Sophia Al Maria, Hisham Matar, Adania Shibli and Neal Stephenson. An expanded English/Turkish version was published by SALT, Istanbul, in 2012 entitled Tercüme Eden.
Hans Ulrich Obrist Interviews: Volume 2 was edited by Charles Arsene-Henry, Shumon Basar and Karen Marta, and published by Charta in 2010. "This is the second volume of interviews from curator Hans Ulrich Obrist's ongoing infinite conversation. It contains dialogues with some of the most significant architects, artists, filmmakers, historians, musicians, philosophers and writers from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries."[1] "The three editors decided to do it according to birthdays so highlighting the five generations occupied by the interviewees," said Obrist, about the system of organising the 70 interviews.[2]
The World of Madelon Vriesendorp was edited by Shumon Basar and Stephan Trueby, designed by Kasia Koczak and published by AA Publications in 2008. It accompanied the first career retrospective of the London-based, Dutch artist Madelon Vriesendorp and included essays and interviews by Charles Jencks, Beatriz Colomina, Douglas Coupland, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Charlie Koolhaas and others.
Cities from Zero was edited by Shumon Basar, designed by Kasia Korczak/Boy Vereeken and published by AA Publications in 2007. "The contributors in this book... focus on both the Gulf emirate of Dubai and the rapid urbanisation of China. Are cities from zero universal blueprints of a better world for all of us, or doomed, out-dated models of already extinct ideologies?"[3]
With/Without was co-edited by Shumon Basar, Antonia Carver and Markus Miessen, designed by Jana Allerding, and published by Bidoun/Moutamarat in 2007. Containing 30 essays and articles on an array of Middle Eastern cities such as Damascus, Tehran, Cairo, Istanbul and Mecca, Kaelen Wilson-Goldie wrote that, "the editors set themselves the task not of celebrating or bashing Dubai but rather of offering a third way between neoliberal and neoleft readings of the place."[4]
Did Someone Say Participate? was edited by Shumon Basar and Markus Miessen, designed by Abake and published by Revolver and MIT Press in 2006. Dominic Eichler, in Frieze magazine, described it as, "an atlas of sorts, but one that maps an extended academic circle and its response to a built world being radically reshaped by conflict and globalization."[5]
Magazines
In 1999, Basar co-founded an independent magazine entitled sexymachinery with friends Dominik Kremerskothen and Stephanie Talbot. After Talbot's departure, the collective grew to include Patrick Lacey, Dagmar Radmacher, Benjamin Reichen, Kajsa Stahl and Maki Suzuki. From 2001 to 2007, sexymachinery released a number of innovative printed issues that eschewed the tendency to move content online, hosted a number of events which they considered "live issues," collaborated with brands such as Adidas and Mandarina Duck, and art directed the dance-pop band Freeform Five.
Having joined in 2001, Basar is currently Editor-at-Large at the fashion/culture quarterly Tank Magazine.
He is also contributing editor at the Middle East arts and culture magazine Bidoun.
In 2012, the director of Art Dubai, Antonia Carver, invited Basar to reinvent its associated cultural program, the Global Art Forum, which had been running since 2007 in a form derived from Art Basel Talks. Global Art Forum 6, under the directorship of Basar, was entitled "The Medium of Media"[6] and took place in Doha, Qatar (18/19 March 2012) and Dubai (21–24 March 2012). It expanded the disciplinary remit to include novelists, historians, filmmakers and journalists; as well as introducing the Globe Books imprint; long-term research projects and curated art and media exhibitions. "The Medium of Media" investigated the meaning of the word "media" in an art context as well as the role that media played in the unfolding of the Arab Spring which was barely a year old at that point. This was followed by Global Art Forum 7 (17–23 March 2013), commissioned by Basar, directed by H.G.Masters, and entitled "It Means This."[7] The theme of language has been an ongoing concern for Basar, who has said, "Contemporary reality is often ahead of our ability to describe it, because we are still left behind in the terminology of the previous era or moment. Such a schism leads to blindness about what is actually happening to us, around us."[8] Global Art Forum 8 (15/16 & 19–21 March 2014) was commissioned by Basar, directed by Omar Berrada and Ala Younis, and entitled "Meanwhile... History."[9] It assembled an imaginary timeline of histories lost, forgotten and erased. Topics included Soviet Orientalism,[10] Pan Kaffirism,[11] Ibn Khaldun's The Muqadimmah,[12] and Trajectories of the Sudanese Gulf.[13] The 2015 edition of Global Art Forum 9, entitled "Download Update?" was co-directed by Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi and Turi Munthe, with Basar acting as Director-as-Large.[14] 2016's edition marked the tenth anniversary of the Global Art Forum. It was called "The Future Was" (9/14 January & 16–18 March 2016), co-directed by Amal Khalaf and Uzma Z. Rizvi, with Basar as Commissioner, focusing on how visions of the future have been formulated in the past.[15] Guests included Hito Steyerl, Elie Ayache, Alice Gorman, Adrienne Maree Brown, Noura Al Noman, Lauren Beukes and Sophia Al Maria. "Trading Places" was the title of the 2017 iteration of the Global Art Forum, co-directed by Antonia Carver and Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, with Basar, again, as Commissioner.[16]
Reception
The intellectual ambitions and playful format of the Global Art Forum have been positively received by audiences and critics alike. In 2012, Tod Wodicka wrote in The National newspaper, "That GAF took place on an island felt somehow important, and illustrated the oft repeated—and manifestly true—claim that it acted as Art Dubai's brain."[17] And then in 2013, Einar Engström wrote in Leap magazine, "Among the invited guests, the 'artist' was barely present. He was chiefly superseded by those outside the art-industry consciousness: the political scientist, the translator, the novelist, the archaeologist, and so on—those who have as much or even more impact on the world and its artists than do the pedestaled curator and critic."[18] In a preview for the 2016 edition, Rachel Spence in the Financial Times said "The forum has come to be recognised as a hub of ideas that has helped to fuel the development of the contemporary art scene in the Gulf."[19]
Format
Since 2006, Basar has contributed to the Public Program at the AA School, London, drawing in notable figures from contemporary culture. His guests have included Ken Adam,[20]Peter Saville, Momus, Claude Parent, Archigram, Keller Easterling, Rem Koolhaas, Alice Rawsthorn, Julia Peyton-Jones, Beatriz Colomina, Nicolai Ouroussoff, Jan de Cock and Hella Jongerius. In 2011, Basar started an annual "live magazine" called FORMAT, which looks, "at the shapes that discourse takes."[21] Each issue takes a cultural or historical format (such as Magic, Philosophy, Lecture, Library, Anniversary, Chat Show, Spam, Cover Version, Protest, Reality, Essay, Trailer, Hobsbawm, Kurt Cobain, Career, Couple) and invites guests (such as The Otolith Group, Cécile B. Evans, Jonathan Allen, Sam Jacob, Brian Dillon, Peter Webber, Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, Tamara Barnett-Herrin) to provide personal insights on how knowledge has been "formatted."[22]
Curating
Exhibitions include:
Slight Agitation (curated as part of the Fondazione Prada Thought Council (Shumon Basar, Cédric Libert, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Dieter Roelstraete)) between 2015 and 2017, presents site specific commissions, arranged successively as four "chapters", "agitating the mind and body, senses and space," by artists Tobias Putrih, Pamela Rosenkranz, Laura Lima and gelitin. For example, Rosenkranz's intervention, entitled "Infection," presented, "A huge, almost sublime mountain of sand... its scale pressuring against the historic architecture. The sand is impregnated with fragrance of synthetic cat pheromones that activates a specific, biologically determined attraction or repulsion and subconsciously influence the public’s movement."[23] It takes place in the Cisterna building, at the Fondazione Prada Milano.
Recto Verso (curated as part of the Fondazione Prada Thought Council) focused on “artworks that consciously foreground the hidden, concealed or forgotten phenomenon of 'the back.'"[24] It took place in the Stecca Nord building, at the Fondazione Prada Milano.
Trittico (curated as part of the Fondazione Prada Thought Council) between 2015 and 2016, “a dynamic display strategy devised by the Thought Council. Three carefully selected works from the Collezione Prada are installed at a time, periodically rotating.”[25] It took place in the Cisterna building, at the Fondazione Prada Milano.
Translated By (co-curated with Charles Arsene-Henry) in 2011/12, “the show is a kind of audio mix-tape of fictional and real places written by international authors.”[26] It toured from London to Kitakyushu and Istanbul.
The World of Madelon Vriesendorp (co-curated with Stephan Trüby) in 2008/09, a 40-year retrospective of the artist. It toured from London to Berlin, Venice and Basel.[27]
Can Buildings Curate (co-curated with Joshua Bolchover and Parag Sharma) in 2005/06, featuring work by Marcel Duchamp, Friedrich Kiesler, Lina Bo Bardi, Neal Rock, Dee Ferris, Goshka Macuga and others. It toured from London to Bristol, New York and Lausanne.[28]
External links
Articles
Shumon Basar, Yourheadisthewholeworld, an archive of published and unpublished writings since 2011
↑ Exhibition Guide from Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, 13 September – 29 October 2005 "Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 17 February 2012. Retrieved 27 December 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
Remment Lucas Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He is often cited as a representative of Deconstructivism and is the author of Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan.
Hans Ulrich Obrist is a Swiss art curator, critic, and historian of art. He is artistic director at the Serpentine Galleries, London. Obrist is the author of The Interview Project, an extensive ongoing project of interviews. He is also co-editor of the Cahiers d'Art review.
Bidoun is an American non-profit organization, focused on art and culture from the Middle East and its diasporas. Bidoun was founded as a print publication and magazine in 2004 by Lisa Farjam, eventually expanding to curatorial projects. The Bidoun magazine was in publication from spring 2004 until spring 2013.
Seth Siegelaub was an American-born art dealer, curator, author, and researcher. He is best known for his innovative promotion of conceptual art in New York in the 1960s and '70s, but has also been a political researcher and publisher, textile history bibliographer and collector, and a researcher working on a project on time and causality in physics.
Madelon Vriesendorp is a Dutch artist, painter, sculptor and art collector. She was married to Rem Koolhaas and best known as one of the co-founders of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in the early 1970s. Vriesendorp would often create visuals and graphics for OMA in the early years.
Art in Dubai is an emerging activity in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. New galleries such as Carbon 12 Dubai, art fairs, artists, art patrons and collectors have grown in number.
Douglas Coupland is a Canadian novelist, designer, and visual artist. His first novel, the 1991 international bestseller Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, popularized the terms Generation X and McJob. He has published 13 novels, two collections of short stories, seven non-fiction books, and a number of dramatic works and screenplays for film and television. He is a columnist for the Financial Times, as well as a frequent contributor to The New York Times, e-flux journal, DIS Magazine, and Vice. His art exhibits include Everywhere Is Anywhere Is Anything Is Everything, which was exhibited at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Royal Ontario Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, now the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada, and Bit Rot at Rotterdam's Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, as well as the Villa Stuck.
Tank is an independent UK-based magazine launched in 1998. It is a quarterly publication, printed in the UK, that covers contemporary culture, fashion, art, architecture, technology and politics. Since its launch, the Tank group has expanded to include Tank Form, tank.tv, TankBooks and Because magazine.
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev is an Italian-American writer, art historian and exhibition maker who has been serving as the Director of Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea and Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti in Turin since 2016. She was Edith Kreeger Wolf Distinguished Visiting Professor in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University (2013-2019). She is the recipient of the 2019 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence.
Massimiliano Gioni is an Italian curator and contemporary art critic based in New York City, and artistic director at the New Museum. He is the artistic director of the Nicola Trussardi Foundation in Milan as well as the artistic director of the Beatrice Trussardi Foundation. Gioni was the curator of the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013.
Fondazione Prada, co-chaired by Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli since 1995, is an institution dedicated to contemporary art and culture. From 1993 to 2010, the Fondazione has organised 24 solo shows at its exhibition spaces in Milan, conceived as dialogues with acclaimed contemporary artists. In 2015, the Fondazione Prada opened a new, permanent facility in Milan.
Art Dubai is a leading international art fair that takes place every March in Dubai. Founded in 2007, Art Dubai is the pre-eminent platform for art from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Each year, the fair features a globally diverse lineup of over 90 galleries from more than 40 different countries, from household names to emerging art spaces, making it the world's most globally diverse art fair.
Gianni Piacentino is an Italian artist known for his sculpture and painting inspired by motorcycles, automobiles and planes.
This is a bibliography for Hans-Ulrich Obrist, a Swiss art curator, critic and historian of art. He currently lives in London.
Markus Miessen is a German architect and writer.
Ian Cheng is an American contemporary artist known for his "virtual ecosystem" live-simulated digital artworks. His artworks explore the capacity of living agents to deal with change, and are "less about the wonders of new technologies than about the potential for these tools to realize ways of relating to a chaotic existence." His work has been widely exhibited internationally, including MoMA PS1, Serpentine Galleries, Whitney Museum of American Art, Hirshhorn Museum, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Migros Museum, and other institutions.
Lisbon-born Filipa Ramos is a writer, lecturer and curator. She received a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the School of Critical Studies at Kingston University, London. Her research, manifested in exhibitions, critical and theoretical texts, lectures, workshops and edited publications, focuses on how art addresses ecology, fostering relationships between nature and technology. She advocates a move away from anthropocentric approaches in the arts and humanities.
Amira Gad is an Egyptian art curator, writer, and editor in modern and contemporary art and architecture who was born in France but grew up in Saudi Arabia. Most recently, she was Head of Programs at Light Art Space (LAS), a private foundation based in Berlin (2020-2023).
The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present is a book written by British writer and curator Shumon Basar, Canadian writer and artist Douglas Coupland, and Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. It was published in 2015 by Penguin Books in the UK, Blue Rider Press in the U.S. and Eichborn in Germany.
Experimenter is a contemporary art gallery co-founded by Priyanka and Prateek Raja in Kolkata. It represents several important artists in the contemporary art scene from across the globe. The gallery functions as an incubator for contemporary art practice spread across various disciplines and media.
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