Rasheed Araeen - A Retrospective

The Van Abbemuseum will stage Rasheed Araeen: A Retrospective, the first comprehensive survey of the artist. The exhibition, spanning 60 years of work, presents a body of work that has had a profound influence on generations of artists, writers and thinkers.

Rasheed Araeen: A Retrospective is structured across five chapters: from his early experiments in painting in Karachi in the 1950s and early 60s, his pioneering minimalist sculptures carried out after his arrival in London in 1964, key pieces from the 70s and 80s following Araeen’s political awakening, his nine panel cruciform works from the 80s and 90s and a selection of his new geometric paintings and wall structures. Alongside this, material relating to Araeen’s writing, editorial and curatorial projects will be presented as part of an expanded artistic practice that in its scope and ambition continues to challenge the formal, ideological and political assumptions of Eurocentric modernism. 

PUBLICATION 

A monograph, edited by Nick Aikens and published by JRP Ringier in collaboration with Van Abbemuseum, MAMCO, BALTIC and Garage includes new essays by Aikens, Kate Fowle, Courtney Martin, Michael Newman, Gene Ray, Dominic Rhatz, John Roberts, Marcus du Sautoy, Zoe Sutherland and Kaelen Wilson-Goldie and an extensive conversation between Aikens and Araeen. 

The monograph can be found in our webshop together with a selection of previous publications about Araeen.