Qasim Riza Shaheen (born 1971) is a British artist and writer based in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...
. Working across participatory performance, installation, film and photography, Shaheen's practice explores memory, notions of beauty, sexuality, love and, more broadly, fundamental concerns about human nature.
"In films, video performances, photographs and mixed-media drawings, Qasim Riza Shaheen presents his affecting reflections on love and loss...For him, self-portraiture is more a matter of imaginative self-creation than any pretence of authentic self-definition...His enactments of queer romance, straight social alienation, and the universal melodramas of unrequited desire are choreographed with painful sensitivity."
Career
Qasim Riza Shaheen's work has been exhibited and programmed widely, including at Asia Contemporary Art Week, New York;
Cornerhouse
Cornerhouse was a cinema and contemporary visual arts centre next to Oxford Road Station on Oxford Street, Manchester, England, from 1985 to 2015. It had three floors of art galleries, three cinemas, a bookshop, bar and café. Cornerhouse was ...
, Manchester; mac in Birmingham;
Southbank Centre
Southbank Centre is an arts centre in London, England. It is adjacent to the separately owned National Theatre and BFI Southbank.
It comprises the three main performance spaces – the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Purcell R ...
, London; SPILL Festival of Performance, London; Brighton International Festival;
Victoria & Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
, London;
Liverpool Biennial
Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the United Kingdom.
Since its launch in 1998, Liverpool Biennial has commissioned over 380 new artworks and presented work by over 530 artists from around the world. ...
;
Arnolfini, Bristol;
National Review of Live Art, Glasgow, Scotland; La Boral, Gijon; Trouble Festival, Les Halles, Brussels; CityArts and
Project Arts Centre
Project Arts Centre is a multidisciplinary arts centre based in Temple Bar, Dublin, which hosts visual arts, theatre, dance, music, and performance.
History
Project Arts Centre was founded by Jim FitzGerald and Colm O'Briain in 1967 after a th ...
, Dublin; Corona Cork Film Festival, Ireland;
Castlefield Gallery
The Castlefield Gallery is an art gallery in Manchester, England, located at 2 Hewitt Street, Knott Mill, Manchester. The gallery, a resource for contemporary visual artists
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmak ...
, Manchester; Twelve Gates Arts, Philadelphia; and Alhamra National Gallery in Lahore, Pakistan, where he was invited as an international resident artist and subsequently as an associate professor at the prestigious
National College of Arts
The National College of Arts (colloquially known as NCA) is a public university located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.
Overview
The National College of Arts – Federally Chartered Institute, is the oldest art school in Pakistan and the second ...
in Lahore and Islamabad.
Prizes and awards
Qasim Riza Shaheen has received several
Arts Council of England
Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three separate bo ...
bursaries as well as international commissions. He is featured on the British Council's Theatre and Dance network which promotes the best of UK performing arts. He was nominated for the Northern Art Prize in 2010. He has had several acquisitions made on his work by museums, galleries and private collectors.
Artist Publications & Articles
''The last known pose: Essays and reflections on the works of Qasim Riza Shaheen'' – forthcoming Cornerhouse publication 2018 Hushlak M. A & Pearl M. (Eds.)
''(I am)mute(with love)'',
Live Art Development Agency
Live Art Development Agency, known by its acronym LADA, is an arts organisation and registered charity founded in London in 1999 by Lois Keidan and Catherine Ugwu. LADA provides professional advice for artists as well as producing events and p ...
, London (forthcoming DVD release 2017)
''MyNoir: Everybody Says I'm Fine'' in Filmint.
''Misplaced Memoirs'' in Performing Ethos: An International Journal of Ethics in Theatre and Performance, Vol 2, No 2 (Intellect, August 2012) p. 155.
''Nine acts of reciprocity''. Oldham: Gallery Oldham, 2010.
''Liliquoi Blue: God made me a boy.'' Dublin: CityArts, 2010.
''‘The NRLA Ball (Both Touching the Sky and Eating Dust…)''’ in
National Review of Live Art 1979–2010: a personal history, Ed. Dee Heddon. Glasgow: NRLA, 2010. p.90.
''‘Queer courtesan (Sixteen processes of beautification)’'', South Asian Popular Culture, Vol 7, No 3, Routledge (October 2009) p.211-215.
''Stains & Stencils''. Cork: Cork International Film Festival, 2009.
''Khusra: Stains & Stencils''. Manchester: Shisha/Cornerhouse Publications, 2007.
''Only the moon to play with''. Manchester:
Arts Council England
Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council o ...
, 2004.
Kathak classical dance art
Qasim Riza Shaheen was initiated as formal dance disciple of Pakistani
Kathak
''Kathak'' is one of the eight major forms of Classical Indian dance, Indian classical dance. Its origin is attributed to the traveling bards in ancient northern India known as ''Kathakar'' ("storyteller"), who communicated stories from the ...
dancer Nahid Siddiqui (Disciple of Maharaj Kathak &
Pandit Birju Maharaj) in the 1990s and continues to be under her tutelage to date. He has performed internationally with Nahid Siddiqui and Company as a dancer at venues including the South Bank Centre, London,
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, England. It has a seating capacity of 5,272.
Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres ...
, London and at
Auditorium Parco della Musica
An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoriums can be found in entertainment venues, community halls, and t ...
, Rome, Italy. His solo dance work has been showcased at the British Dance Edition 2008 held in Liverpool.
References
External links
Marina Abramovic, Wendy Ramshaw, Qasim Riza ShaheenAutoportraits in love like conditionsQasim Riza Shaheen – The last known poseBritish Council – Artist profileTwelve Gates Arts: Works BiographyQueer Contact Artist blog – Qasim Riza ShaheenProfiles , Diaspora: Qasim Riza ShaheenAsia Contemporary Art Week 2015Qasim Riza Shaheen: Autoportraits in love-like conditions Sophia Al-Maria: Virgin with a MemoryQasim Riza Shaheen: Autoportraits In Love-like Conditions
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaheen, Qasim Riza
1971 births
Living people
Artists from Manchester
British contemporary artists
British performance artists
Body art
British male dancers
Performers of Indian classical dance