Directions

Overview

Psychologists stress that in order to solve our problems we should analyse the brain's signals, particularly those that seem unsystemic and unclassified. They create a pathology from these chaotic currents and label them as a product of the brain's deviations. But actually such non¬systemic moments of the brain of any human who thinks creatively reveal an ability to see all that lies beyond the area of our sight; therefore the creative process resembles a network capturing such unmeasurable moments and transforming them.

Mohamad Kazem returns us to the original myth of autobiography, by utilising the concept of the 'soul' as a component of a larger narrative. It is an act and an idea deliberately modified, the artist has managed to systematize and arrange the non-systematic or unmeasurable, from a deviation in the discursion of mind, and made it concur with an aesthetically and physically compelling concept.

Previously the work of Mohamad Kazem was heavily loaded with subjective analysis. Complex, characterized by the presence of a number of social and psychological elements, all in an intensive way. These elements and acts were lacking in cunning and they indicate good will, as they were natural to the artist. These works could be seen as a way for memorizing by means of observing and measuring distances, weighting and arranging objects; they were the result of a process of listing, discovering and analyzing the movement of natural elements. It is an expression of the changes that took place in our lives. These changes obliged the artist to use measures and to create his own space in order to communicate with others. Contemporary life is composed of elements and various dynamic forces; and these forces affect the awareness and understanding for life. The works were a product of new scientific, philosophical and social changes that took place ego rapid and enormous transport movement and movements of human groups from one area into another in towns or cities resembling moving colossal icebergs. Such a process immerses us in the experiences of the collective unconscious, the elements of nature, unless the 'soul' develops and transcends the internalised state; intersubjectively, so as not to distance the human. Kazern's Work finds momentum between the concept floating signifier and the solidity of autobiography. It is flotsam, but inscribed flotsam, subjected to the permanent rhythm of the sea.

Mohamad Kazem places or puts these acts into context using a modern or new aesthetic mediun ideas and simple acts are just investigated. It is a type of serious struggle to reach or reveal what cannot be known, and is attainable by only 'non-sensical' procedures. Mohamad Kazem states: "I have always dived into the deep sea since my childhood, so I came to know the big waves one by one. and when I grew up I would measure the little waves that I saw on the sea shore. I have discovered that measuring waves no matter their size, big or little, is not so easy, but I would like to measure my own experience by means of the waves."

Autobiography No. (1) 1997 "measuring length, width and intensity of walls, door and windows". This work was displayed in the Sharjah Art Museum in 1998.

In this work Mohamad Kazem presented a collection of maps drawn carefully on paper of variable sizes where he measured length, width and intensity of walls, doors, windows, corners of his house; then he proceeded to draw these maps in order to indicate the measures of thes elements. He didn't follow the geometrical concept in drawing maps that have to do with using percentages in drawing. These maps visually imply drafts or architectural drawing copies; but it is quite impossibh to materialize in reality or practice the construction of a house or a building or even a wall from them. The rules used in drawing these maps were connected to the personal logic of the artist and they take him back to childhood memories. Mohamad Kazem comments on this particular experiment by saying. "There is no need here to have a 'faithful' artist. I remember being a child of 5 years old. I used to view the walls of our house as tall, that right now I can climb very easily. My

function does not lie in measuring walls, windows and doors dimensions. My function as an artist is t measure my own experience and to compare it to the experiences of other artists who have preceded me. The dimensions, measures and weights were not so exact In. my work. The percentage of these elements used to be very different for me as a child. So, It IS precisely through inexactness that I wanted to reach another dimension enabling me to co-exist with my objects, walls, doors, windows and corners were personal objects of mine; they were things found in my house and they were very intimately connected to me since my childhood days. For the above reason the maps stand for my own curriculum vitae." This work belonged to a series
, ..' t bei made in Sharjah's building sites
of "autobiographies" the most Iterative and contmqen elng
and along its edges or boundaries.
Photographs with flags and photographs with a flag - Autobiography - 4. 1997
The above work contains a series of more than forty photographs of Mohamad Kazem standing beside a small flag; these flags do not concern countries or companies or institutions, but each one is merely a piece of cloth of various colours and sizes and fixed on area of 40 x 30 km approximately in the region of Memzar, Dubai as part of a project of building new roads.
The photographic series could be taken as a realistic scene of the material world. But actually there is always another kind of reality. It corresponds to idea that we must get hold of a relative, probability-based understanding of the world and our agency in it, instead of an absolute or definitive understanding to the absolute. In this way we could calculate, negotiate and interrogate a subjectivity and connection between past, present and future; and by proceeding in this way; we could understand the world in a "new" way; and by means of these photographs Mohamad Kazem highlights, and in a plausible manner, investigates the existence of a strong relationship between the material world and the spiritual one.
Mohamad Kazem comments on the idea of this particular work as a construction site "District of Mamzar, Dubai".
"The work allows the viewer a recollection: the collection of flags takes the memory back, a year or more, remembering the flags and the reason behind their presence in the area "District of Mamzar, Dubai". At the same time the idea takes the viewer's memory back again to the present time, surprised by constructing roads and new buildings, some of them completed, others underway; here a number of future expectations come to the mind of the viewer: what are the objects and buildings to be constructed in the future? This work is intimately related to environment and the rapid developments in civil engineering e.q, constructing gardens, roads, buildings, bridges and so on. The viewer could remember that a little less than a year ago this area had been empty, but now he can see roads, pavements, lights and he is in a position to forecast future developments.
"So, my works were not subjective or narcissistic. Although the main title of my works was 'CV', but my work continues to have a strong rooted relationship with my surrounding environment. My presence in the photograph was very important; it was possible for me to content myself with photographs of renowned figures only but I preferred to communicate a story like idea to the viewer, a story that illustrates my movement from one flag to another. In "Pictures with flags" the viewer sees my back and not my face; this immediately invites or draws the viewer's attention to see the scene I was "admiring" during the time of taking shots. So, my standing position is similar to the viewer's as he is watching my work in the exhibition. I view the whole scene but the camera lens misses part of the scene, this is because my body hides part of the scene in the photo, also the vi wer in turn sees an incomplete scene.
"Seven years earlier, I prepared a number of paintings depicting landscapes or scenes from nature where I used to stand in front of the concerned scene on the surface of my painting. I used to move physically from one scene to another. This is why this idea is an extension or continuity to my earlier productions or works, i.e. my stream of thinking is one since my first painting and up to now. So, I move with ideas from one point to another and through all my experiences, whether artistic or living; and I make no distinction between living experience and art experience. This is because art is life. So, in both cases I go about to expose the idea and relate it as familiar to everybody. all living creatures walk and move from one location to another even plants do so. I think that man is vulnerable in front of nature. "there is nothing 'unnatural' all you get or do as behaviour is a product of nature."

We see: a wooden box divided into six vacant compartments open on both sides. Length of both identical to the length of the artist himself. He undertakes certain physical performances exercised in front of the afore mentioned box. His movements are photographed, and later on, the 24 pictures are placed inside the box, four pictures inside each of the corners of his box. The viewer is supposed to perform the same movements carried out by the artist while taking his photgraphs; this is in order to see all the pictures exposed inside the box, i.e. the viewer must perform 24 movements in front of the box if he wishes to see them all.

The viewer's position is paramount in Kazem's work. An aluminum pole, with a length of 180cm, a photograph of the artist has been posted onto it representing the face of the artist himself seen or viewed from top to bottom and vice-versa. The viewer is supposed to move his head according to the illustrated method in the pictures, photographs, displayed in front of him. All that Mohamad Kazem offers to us a very simple work; he is communicating such simplicity to the viewer inviting him to imitate the same gestures or movements that the artist has performed while taking pictures, or to not see the work in the performative sense. These works by Mohamad Kazem enable the viewer to use his physique when he stands admiring a work of art; not just to stand in front of a work of art, but to be incorporated into the work. Such works are not supposed to be seen only by the eye, they also cause the body to see.

Another set of aluminium poles witll photographs, SlIwws us ilihe hands and le_gs of ,the artist.himself in various positions, on top he has printed the hands, below are the legs. The work itself stands for the real height of the artist when he lifts himself up on his hands. Possibly this signifies childhood at a time when the teacher punishes the student by raising his hands while standing to face the blackboard with his back facing the other pupils. Kazem speaks of its material rather than purpose: "the aluminum has a black colour".

A work containing 36 pictures symbolising the artist's face while entering his tongue in different holes e.q. a jug opening, a water-pipe hole and so on. Mohamad Kazem deals with objects and things in a deliberately narcissistic way, with the endless fascination of the mirror, and with which he overwhelms the viewer's own agency and desire, constituted in the subject's return; in the dialogic position of calculation, negotiation and interrogation that deals with the contingencies and the incommensurate time lag between the sign (especially in these photographs with flags, of Sharjah, with particular place names) and their discursive formation. These open up and animate hybrid space, allow the chaotic systems to unfold their billowing narratives; history, without rushing to make a unity of the corporeal and its space, their contradictory forces and antagonisms.

"The twentieth century has restored and deepened the notion of flesh, that is, of animate body. "

Maurice Merleau - Ponty, Man and Adversity-1964

The works and acts of Mohamad Kazem have been an expression of self-assertion, such an assertion that is created by violence, the 'primitive' ; an impolite act of behaviour vis-a-vis the other, i.e. the viewer. Mohamad Kazem creates the so-called bitter "conflict" through his works. HS