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FIROZ MAHMUD

URGENCY OF PROXIMATE DRAWING!"#$"%

EDITOR

Francesca Fanelli, James Jack, Aryan Snowball

PHOTOGRAPHY

Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art / Juri Yamashita, Sharjah Art Foundation / Alfredo Dancel Rubio, The Kunsthaus Tacheles, Mimi Fadmi / Asbestos Art space,

DESIGN AND CONCEPT Cindy Rodriguez

CONTRIBUTIONS

Ozawa Tsuyoshi, Asbestos Art Space

TRANSLATION

Miho Murashima

COVER IMAGE Asashoryu007 – Urgency of Proximate Drawing

© 2011 FÄCT Publishing and Firoz Mahmud

Printed in the U.S.A.

ISBN-13: 978-1463753122

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the artist and publisher.

Publishing this book was made possible with generous support of Asian Cultural Council (ACC) New York, Ota Fine Arts Tokyo and Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam.

www.firozmahmud.com

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「独特な視点で、人間の人生の一瞬の光にフォーカスし、思いもかけないシンプル で力強い方法で空間を構成しようとしています。見る人は、心ワクワクせずにはいら れない。」ー小沢剛

“Through a very unique point of view, Firoz focuses on a moment of people’s lives. Although his method is very simple, it reconstructs the space in a very strong way. His works give viewers a lot of excitement.” – Ozawa Tsuyoshi, Artist based in Japan

“Firoz’s announced plan is to rescue icons from detritus, but something sinister is at play in these brutalist lines. The crazy cat’s cradle across a former pugilist’s face, a flesh-eating phantasm in it’s pre-animation wireframe, is channeling Tyson’s unmoored, chaotic, fractured ID.” – Naeem Mohaiemen is a writer & artist in Bangladesh.

“Firoz has artfully and humorously explored social and emotive issues through his ‘NINKi :UoPD’ Urgency of Proximate Drawings. I am surprised how he magically rescued the perturbed stars during their danger situation in the photographs. The drawing structures are drawn with geometric patterns that appear like protective hex symbols. All celebrities can eventually remain invincible in their popularity, protected by an uncanny force.” – Lucy Birmingham is a critic and journalist based in Tokyo. Her articles appeared in Japan Times, Time.com, Wall Street Journal, ARTFORUM Magazine, Artinfo.com, Artforum.com, ARTnews.

7Firoz Mahmud is a Bangladeshi artist, who was born and raised in Khulna and Dhaka. After his graduation from Dhaka University, he moved to Amsterdam for an artist-in-residence and research program at Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten. He has travelled, lived and worked in many countries in Europe, Asia and the United States of America for the last decade. He was adopted in many traditional cultures and life during his time abroad, and also was very much impressed by popular culture and various kinds of entertaining fields and media, which were greatly expressed through mediums such as music, sports, politics, animation, cartoon and film.

Besides his major art projects and painting, he makes drawings with fun on celebrity images. He has been drawing for the last few years on popular celebrities such as singers, sportsmen, and actors or actresses who have huge popularity – all have controversy in media and among the public.

Attesting to Sympathy for the Champions Political Strategy to Rescue the Superstar

During his life and career in Japan, he experienced a lot of humorous and different feelings from Japanese manga, animation, life, society and culture. Japanese Manga is a genre of cartoons, comic books, and animated films in Japanese society. Firoz was inspired to make the Urgency of Proximate Drawing for the famous celebrities. That is why the title of his drawing project was named NinKi:UoPD.

“Ninki” is a Japanese word which means “popular.” The Ninki Art Project of drawings and drawings on photographs consists of numerous archetypal images of popular celebrities in vague appearances. Their activities and characters are anarchistic and individualized. They are popular celebrities of different fields of entertainment and culture – Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson, Zinedine Zidan, Diego Maradona, cricketer Shoib Akhter (world’s fastest cricket bowler), Sumo wrestler Asashoryu Akinori (25 times top division Sumo champion in Japan) among other are the main character of his drawings. They are all popular icons during their span of career, but all have been blemished by controversy for one reason or another.

NinKi Urgency of Proximate Drawings focuses mostly on Sumo wrestler Asashoryo Akinori.1 Firoz was living in Japan for some time and became interested in making the drawings on a sumo wrestler who is both admired for his success in sumo wrestling and controversial during his career. The other celebrities have similar reasons for popularity and controversy.

Firoz focuses on images where the celebrities are in excited, playful, and happy moments. He draws remarkable lines where they are about to fall in the photographs. Their idolized appearances are highlighted by protective line drawings that display an

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was drinking coffee or green tea. Gradually, friends, curators, and artists were interested in seeing Firoz exhibit the drawings as his artwork. He decided to express the drawings as his series of art projects.

Several volumes of the NinKi:UoPD drawings were made and exhibited in the last few years and held in different venues in different countries. The project in New York will likely be the last session for this project.

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BADI ’; awareness of the performative ethos of iconic expression. The lines underneath the falling position imply the stardoms can’t fall down from the gestures and positions that they are held in. Most of the drawing structure he has named “Tsukaibou” or

“Salvager.” The “Tsukaibou” is a Japanese word meaning support or a kind of “salvager.” The structure often looks like a diamond or an octagon or a magician’s wand. Firoz is a magician to save the celebrities! He implies different valuable reasons for most of the drawing structures, using his own created structure of drawing on the image where needed.

Attesting to Sympathy for the Champions, Political Strategy to Rescue Superstar implies that he declares that the motion of the popular icons need support while they are in danger of their falling positions in the images. In the images, sometimes, they shout opening their mouths and the “Tsukaibou” or “Salvager” is in the mouth. The drawing structures allow the celebrities to shout longer, in a relaxed mode – shouting against the media that criticizes them.

After doing several projects with the drawings, Firoz decided he would not exhibit the Urgency of Proximate Drawings in commercial galleries or museums in a formalized way. Instead, he prefers to exhibit in public spaces 3, buildings, trains, buses, monuments related to the celebrities’ own arenas, such as stadiums, concert halls, and sumo dome. The images prefer to appear in music magazines, cricket, football, boxing or wrestling magazines, and Japanese gay magazines, like Budi. Some people told him that drawings on sumo look naked and sexual, wouldn’t gay people love these! The NinKi:UoPD (Urgency of Proximate Drawings) exhibited and appeared in both places.The Urgency of Proximate Drawings was initiated as fun while he

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2008 – 2011

NinKI Urgency of Proximate Drawing [NinKi: UoPD]

Tokyo, THE UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS, Anole (A.), 2008.

UAE, Sharjah. SHARJAH BIENNALE 2009, RRR (Rally Round Rajah) at Halcyon Tarp Project. 2009.

Nigata, ECHIGO-TSUMATI ART TRIENNALE (Dynamo Art Project) Japan, Anole & Sentient Homology. 2009.

Hiroshima, HIROSHIMA MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, Rescued Stardom. 2009.Bandung, Indonesia,

ASBESTOS ART SPACE & CITY, Whatever They are Scolded Your Star is Safe. 2010.Tokyo, UNDERGROUNDS, Loss of the Toss is Blessing of Their Disguise. 2010.

Tokyo, B.A.D. MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART – YUGA GALLERY, Tokyo University of the Arts, Yatta ! Anzen !

New York, UNDERGROUND AND PUBLIC SPACES, I buy, you frame – 10% tax and 100% discount. Firoz Mahmud’s NinKI: UoPD , Urgency of Proximate Drawing is on SALE. 2011 (Up-coming).

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“The objects of ‘Salvager,’ or ‘Tsukaibou,’ are 3D models that protect or support the celebrities from their position in the photographs.” – FM

Sculpture to correspond with NinKi Urgency of Proximate Drawing [NinKi:UoPD] .

Wood, acrylic paint, bond

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Ninki Urgency of Proximate Drawing [NinKi:UoPD] uses ink, gel-based rollerball pen, felt-tip, correction fluid, and acrylic paint on paper.

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2011 Installation view at Broadway-Lafayatte St, 8 Ave, 14th St, 6 Ave, Union Square, W 4th St Washington Square, Broadway, Prince St, Times Square, 33 St.The project was held in different intervals between March to September

during Artist Residency at The International Studio and Curatorial

Program (ISCP) and Westbeth Artist Housing in New York.

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2011 Created during Artist Residency at The International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in Brooklyn, New York.

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“I am a benevolent but poor artist who can protect vexed people or things in rich time.” – FM

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“I ponder how to formulate and concept for the popular celebrities to support. It tenses me while I devise to draw. I perceive every particular image and make a strategy for where the drawing can be structured. That is my game plan to rescue all detested celebrities through my drawings. Am I the superman artist that can save them?” – FM

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Loss of the Toss is Blessing of their Disguise, Underground and Billboards, Tokyo, Japan, 2011.

Yatta ! Anzen ! B.A.D. Museum of Contemporary Art, Yuga Gallery. University of the Arts, Tokyo, Japan, 2010.

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NinKi Urgency of Proximate Drawing [NinKi:UoPD] Project Installation View at Ueno Station, Tokyo

2011

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NinKi Urgency of Proximate Drawing [NinKi:UoPD] Project Installation View at B.A.D. Museum of Contemporary Art, Yuga Gallery. University of the Arts. Tokyo, Japan.

2010

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“Each and every drawing has its own concept which can strategically change visual idea of the image. It sometimes brings my eyes into a depth of vision.” –FM

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Sumo Asashoryu2009 - 2009

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Whatever They Are Scolded, Your Star is Safe, Asbestos Art Space & City Public spaces, Bandung, Indonesia, 2010.

Rescued Stardom, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, 2009.

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quality of the art world for the last century. Firoz extends the wealth of his tradition as he finds local media and brings them to international contemporary art exhibitions or biennales.

Firoz Mahmud’s Solo Exhibition is going to be held at Asbestos Art Space, Bandung, Indonesia. He offers the title Whatever They are Scolded, Your Star is Safe. His work is displayed as material world graffiti-like photos of celebrities such as Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson, and Diego Maradona, among others. The photos act as found objects from public media such as magazines, newspapers and websites which were then processed with his own techniques using a felt-tip pen, correction fluid, acrylic color and ink. The drawings are produced for different reasons and concepts. These Urgency of Proximate Drawings are his ongoing art project using his own name, although sometimes he exhibit the project anonymously. His exhibition of NinKi Drawings are titled differently for each venue. Each project has a different plan than the other.

The images of Mike Tyson, Michael Jackson, footballer Diego Maradona or other celebrities drawings were shown in a project titled Rescued Stardom at Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art / MoCA in 2009. Firoz has been doing this drawing project for a long time, but started to exhibit it in 2008 at Sharjah Biennale, in the United Arab Emirates. The RRR (Rally Round Rajah) drawings on Royal Bengal tigers were part of his major project, Halcyon Tarp.

He is going to exhibit large scale drawings at our project space and Bandung city’s public spaces. The concept and title of his project is Whatever They Want Are Scolded, Your Star Is Safe, which Firoz Mahmud meant in various dimensions. He described his

Firoz Mahmud is a young Bangladeshi artist who is active in various forums and contemporary art exhibitions in Asia, living and working, shuttling between Dhaka, Bangladesh and Tokyo, Japan. As an Asian commuter, Firoz’ artwork reveals his native social, political and historical issues as well as humorous and universal common matter. The Urgency of Proximate Drawing [NinKi:UoPD] is a drawing project which reflects humour in ideas that have not existed previously – images of social customs, culture and caste stratification in our daily lives, and the myth, the interaction between death and faith.

He considers himself as a cross-media artist methodically – A cross-media approach that relies on non-methodical media or found objects which remind us of Marcel Duchamp’s ready- made objects. In the visual arts, the objects are selected by the artists are choices based on an aesthetic interest in art offerings. These terms are very popular among the Dadaists. Ready-made objects have been used as a challenge to the artistic

Whatever They are Scolded,Your Star is Safe

An Introduction to Firoz Mahmud’s Exhibition W. C h r i s t i aw e n

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project: “This project of drawing on / and photographs relates parties in the affinity of archetypal images of celebrities in vague appearances. Their activities are anarchistic and individualistic in character. The celebrities –‘Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson, Zinedine Zidan, Shoib Akhter, Diego Maradona – are the popular icons on their span of career, but all are blemished by controversy for different reasons. I focus on Celebrities excited, playful, sporty and happy moments. I draw lines nowhere remarkable as they are about to fall in the photographs. Their appearances are idolized by protective high-lighting that line drawings display an awareness of the performative ethos of iconic expression. The lines underneath the falling position imply as if the stardoms can’t fall down from the images, feel convenient with gestures on their face and the structure ontology them easy to make what they want would like to express.”

Be mocked and your stars will remain safely secured. It means Firoz really believes in the curse of the public and it’s agitation with the immoral behavior of celebrities (which is not only a rock star, movie stars, sportsmen but also politicians). Being mocked in any gossip tabloid, they would be still safe. Firoz provides criticism not only on the celebrities but also on human behavior which cannot be controlled, especially when they are on top of supremacy. The drawings are like colorful graffiti on top of black and white photography. The findings serve as a nuisance but at the same time, they become a tool for the star from the action that was saved from the public’s blasphemy. The images are black comedy. Those who laugh at themselves have understood their own lives. Art is sharing the understanding of the meaning of life. Firoz hacks the images to offer ambiguous meaning. He uses photography to record images and video, and visual effects with dramatic action, movie and picture collage, narrative text, and music – combined to form a video installation, hack video, and performance video. Digital art can use the video or photography medium, or

traditional drawing methods. The final works can eventually be printed and displayed in a two-dimensional presentation, or they are only presented in virtual form, and only seen on a computer screen or in focus, obscuring the line between modern and traditional media. They are like two different sides of a coin that complete each other. His works offer a hybrid, new sensibility in the reading. Firoz explores his own tradition as inspiration and mixes it with the first contextual and volatile world issues.

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NinKi Urgency of Proximate Drawing [NinKi:UoPD] Project Installation View as Asbestos Art Space, Bandung, Indonesia

2010

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NinKi Urgency of Proximate Drawing [NinKi:UoPD] Project Installation View at Bandung City Public Space, Indonesia

2010

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NinKi Urgency of Proximate Drawing [NinKi:UoPD] Installation View at The Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan

2009

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his mouth. All of it, insistently, channeling Tyson’s unmoored, fractured, aggressive, frightening id.I was watching John Carpenter’s The Thing again after many years. Like many films that scared the bejesus out of us as teenagers, time has not been kind to the fear factor. The flesh-eating alien is now revealed as crude 1980’s make up effect. And then it came to me. Look closely, the alien does remind you of Firoz’s minimal, zigzag, ink on paper contraptions. Or the other way round. Animation before high-speed computers. Each cell drawn here in ballpoint. But to mix it up, he does change colors.

Firoz wants people to remember why Tyson fell. Remember the bundle of violence that bit Evander Holyfield`s ear, and finally careened out of the ring into a horrific rape case. Not the self-caricaturing crooner in two Hangover films (with a pet tiger in the first film!). Tyson’s facial tattoo is now the safe punch line for what happens when American men party too much in Thailand. Bangkok has them now.

Looks like a summer blockbuster can rehabilitate anyone.

But wait; enter Firoz, with his violent lines. Maybe that drawing is meant to be a muzzle.

This will hurt, a lot.

Naeem Mohaiemen is a writer and artist working in Dhaka and New York.

Firoz Mahmud announces that these people are “celebrities, entertainers, politicians” who are both popular and controversial. Keeping in mind his Bengal tiger expedition in Sharjah Biennial 2009, I was expecting at least one character in this rigged gallery to be from Bangladesh. There isn’t, and given the sadism he’s about to inflict, that is perhaps a good thing.

At Sharjah Biennale 2009, where NinKi: Urgency of Proximate Drawing [NinKi:UoPD] was first exposed through his Halcyon Tarp Project, there were newspaper clippings and photocopies of Bengal tigers. Tiger tiger burning too bright– neglected in Dhaka zoo, dying from heat exhaustion. There were geometric lines there too, framing but also harpooning that majestic cat.

Why no felines this time? Perhaps the Tokyo humane society protested.

Firoz says his plan is to rescue icons from detritus, but something sinister is at play in these brutalist lines. Mike Tyson is the anchor in all this. A carnivorous phantasm (in pre-animation wireframe) climbing on his face, a crazy cat’s cradle during a press conference, and the beginnings of a larva head all over

Firoz wants to fight Tyson

Na e e m Mo h a i e m e n

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“The each celebrity was popular and became odium and eventually regained popularity!” – FM

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Anole & Sentient Homology, Echigo-Tsumati Art Triennale (Dynamo Art Project), Nigata, Japan, 2009.

RRR (Rally Round Rajah), Sharjah Biennale at Halcyon Tarp Project, Sharjah, UAE, 2009.

Anole, The University of the Arts, Tokyo, Japan, 2008.

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Installation view at Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale (Dynamo Art Project). Venue: Senda Shogakko, Nigata, Japan

OPPOSIT E : Sentient Homology. Double-screen video, 16 minute loop

2009

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The University of the Arts, Tokyo Japan

Pitt Graphite 2900 HB Faber-Castell and coloring pencil on paper.Size: 120 x 182 cm

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Part of Halcyon Tarp Project at Sharjah Biennale, Sharjah, UAE2009

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Biography

FIROZ MAHMUD (studio/pseudonym: fee`rose) was born in Khulna, Bangladesh. Based in Dhaka & Tokyo . He studied BFA (1997) from Dhaka University, MFA (2007) from Tama Art University and PhD (2011) from Tokyo University of the Arts.

He attended an artist residency and research program at the Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten (2003-04), Amsterdam, Ozu Culture Center (2009), Italy, Kolkata Nandonik, Kolkata, National Art Gallery, Dhaka and International Studio and Curatorial Program (2010-2011) in New York.

Firoz has exhibited his works in a number of major exhibitions including: 1st Aichi Triennale (2010), Tashkent Biennale (2009), Sharjah Biennale, UAE (2009), Cairo Biennale (2008), Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale (2006 & 2009 in DAP), Asian Biennale Bangladesh (2008, 2002 & 2000).

His work has also been exhibited at The Metropolitan Art Museum in Tokyo, Fuchu Art Museum, Ota Fine Arts, University Art Museum, Mori Art Museum (Center Gallery) , The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts in Tokyo, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art (2010) in Japan, kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin, Rochester Contemporary Art Center in New York, Sovereign Asian Art Foundation, The Landmark Atrium in Hong Kong, Exhibition

Center, S.M.A.K., The Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art – Ghent, Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, Changwon Sungsan Art Hall in Korea, National Art Gallery, Rijksakademie, Dhaka, Van Beeldende Kunsten, Projectruimte Oost, MediaSchip in Amsterdam, Metropolitan Gallery Mostings & Byggeriets Hus, Frederiksberg, ShContemporary ‘08 in Shanghai, Copenhagen,Denmark, Royal Over-seas League in London, Concourse RNCM in Manchester and Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland, Mayor Plaza in Madrid, Birla Academy, Kolkata, India, Asbestos Art Space, La Gallery, National Gallery and National Museum, Dhaka, Yatta ! Anzen ! - NinKi: UoPD, B.A.D. Museum of Contemporary Art Yuga Gallery Geidai, ‘Lamentation’ Ota Fine Arts , Tokyo. His up-coming shows are ‘I Buy, You Frame! 10% Tax, 100% Discount – Urgency of Proximate Drawing is on SALE’, New York and ‘Step Across This Line’ – Contemporary art from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, Asia House, London.

Firoz has received several national and international awards and prizes including Asian Cultural Council/Starr Foundation grant from New York (ACC – 2010/2011), Short listed5 - Jiro Yoshihara Project 2009mini, Osaka Contemporary Art Center, Prize for Art project Ideas` from Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art(2009), Arts Networks Asia (ANA research grant), Singapore (2007), Kaiseikai Foundation Grants (2007), Monbukagakusho Japanese Government Scholarship (2007), Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs Rijksakademie Fellowship, Netherlands (2003), ‘Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grants’, Canada (1998), C.E.D.S.-Prize’, Royal Over-seas League, London, Khalaghar National Art Prize, Dhaka, Dilnasheen Khanom Gold Medal (2002) & Shilpachariya Zainul Gold Medal’ (All Art Media Best), Institute of Fine Art, Dhaka (1997). He is represented by Ota Fine Arts in Tokyo.

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