Rasheed Araeen

Rasheed Araeen (born Karachi, 1935) is a conceptual artist, sculptor, painter, writer and curator of Pakistani origin who built most of his career in London, where he settled in 1964. He matters for having joined artistic practice with activism against Eurocentrism and the colonial legacy in British art.

He first studied mathematics and physics and then graduated in civil engineering in Karachi in 1962. While studying, he encountered avant-garde art through imported Western books and magazines and through contact with contemporary Pakistani artists. In 1959 he turned a twisted piece of wire into his first minimalist sculpture. His work, far from local tradition, left him feeling misunderstood in Karachi, and in London he began making minimalist sculptures with kinetic and participatory possibilities, such as Chakras and Disco Sailing, built from geometric units and open to audience intervention.

From the 1970s, after discriminatory experiences, his work took on an openly postcolonial tone. In the performance Paki Bastard (1977) he projected his structures onto his own body. His essay Preliminary Notes for a Black Manifesto, written between 1975 and 1976, is probably his most representative text. His editorial work was equally decisive: he founded Black Phoenix in 1978 and Third Text in 1987, a pioneering journal offering critical perspectives on art from outside the Western world. In 1989 he curated The Other Story, an exhibition of British African, Caribbean and Asian artists. His career included participation in the 2017 Venice Biennale and documenta 14, and a touring retrospective between 2017 and 2019. His legacy lies in institutional critique that exposed the limits of European art institutions.