Mohammed Kazem – Even the Shade Does not Belong to Them, 2018 Sound of Light, 2019 Windows, 2019 Window, 2022

Blaise Adilon

Venue

Usines Fagor

Lyon

Born 1969 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where he lives and works.

In seeking to reveal what is habitually concealed, Mohammed Kazem acts as an agent of resistance. The six canvases in his series Even the Shade Does not Belong to Them, based on photographs he took in the street, portray labourers working on building sites. It seems as if we are looking at the protagonists, painted in acrylic and dark ink, through a murky glass. The effect conveys how the labourers, though always there, often go unnoticed. “People look right through them” notes the artist. Windows captures invisible and intimate events in the urban landscape – minor tales of physical toil, which Mohammed Kazem lays bare by “scratching” the surface of the canvas. Sound of the Light, representing a cantilevered staircase, alludes to the dialogue between architecture and light.