Image courtesy of Aicon Gallery

Pakistani engineer turned conceptual artist, Rasheed Araeen, is using his geometric art to highlight racism and inequality. LUX explores the history behind his celebrated works

Rasheed Araeen

Rasheed Araeen is now considered one of Britain’s pioneers of minimalist sculpture during the mid to late 20th Century. But during that period, he received little institutional recognition for his contribution to the modernist discourse in Britain. Araeen’s Pakistani background side-lined him as a non-European whose work was consistently evaluated within the context of post-colonial structures, which inevitably resulted in far less exposure.

Black Square Breaking into Primary Colours, 2016, from the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation

This latent racism led to his work in the 1970s and 1980s – in performance, photography, painting and sculpture – developing an overtly political content which drew attention to the way in which black artists were invisible within the dominant Eurocentric culture.

Untitled, 2015

Araeen is now famously known for using geometric structures, in which vertical and horizontal lines are held together by a network of diagonals, to play on the links between Eastern and Western thought and the frameworks of social institutions and aesthetics.

He often overlays his photographs within geometric structures, to further emphasise humans and the social structure in which they exist.

Rhapsody in Four Colours, 2018. Image courtesy of Aicon Gallery

Araeen comments, “I’m sick of the avant-garde and I want to get out of it. It is believed that the idea of abstraction is a twentieth-century phenomenon. In Damascus, it took place 1200 years ago. Nobody wants to hear about that in Europe.”

Read more: Behind The Lens Of Sunil Gupta’s Photographs

OPUS TD 3 (2), 2017. Image courtesy of Aicon Gallery

Through his artworks and books, Araeen has become a key activist in establishing a black voice in Britain’s art scene, publishing ‘Black Phoenix’ in 1978, and subsequently ‘Third Text’ in 1987, and ‘Third Text Asia’ in 2008. Araeen also founded Kala Press, to spread information and recognition of unacknowledged African and Asian artists in Britain who contributed to the development of post-war British art.

Rasheed Araeen lives and works in London. He is represented by Grosvenor Gallery.

This article was published in association with the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation

Working with several designers, Van Cleef & Arpels have breathed new life into their classic collection

This season, we’ve got our eye on the new, youthful additions to Van Cleef & Arpels’ Perlée collection

Perlée is one of Van Cleef & Arpels’ long-standing, classic collections so-called after the maison‘s signature style of beaded jewels. The newest additions offer a fresh twist on the traditional and have been visualised in youthful graphic campaigns created in collaboration with designers such as Santi Zoraidez and Oscar Pettersson, both of whom are known for their playful, pastel aesthetics, digital geometric formations and sizeable Instagram followings.

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This might mark the first steps to a more millennial approach for the traditional French jewellery brand as does the focus on bespoke design. For example, the transformable long beaded necklace allows wearers to swap in the central ring with a variation of three colours (onyx, turquoise and coral) to better suit their mood, outfit or the occasion.

The transformable long beaded necklace with a coral inner ring

One of Van Cleef & Arpels’ new ‘secret watches’ in bracelet style with rose gold and diamonds

Even the more grown-up pieces such as the secret watches have been made-over with contrasting gemstones and precious metals – rose gold paired with diamonds, deep green malachite and orange coral, yellow gold studded with diamonds and lapis lazuli. It’s an effortless, refreshing new look for the collection, and the brand.

Find out more: vancleefarpels.com