Firoz Mahmud: Inscaping Legacies
Firoz Mahmud: Inscaping Legacies
Pace University Art Gallery
September 30-October 28, 2023
Inscaping Legacies at Pace University Art Gallery is a major solo exhibition by the interdisciplinary artist Firoz Mahmud whose work draws on the histories of the South Asian Bengal region in which he is deeply rooted, and where many historical cities have been transformed by colonialism.
Tracing the paths of these complex legacies, Mahmud illuminates their continuum to the present Bengali immigrant communities in New York City. Mahmud, whose father and grandfather were academic historians and writers, has liked to read itihash (history) and vugol (geography) since he was young. Drawing and painting in a wide array of media, he now juxtaposes themes of socio-political culture, tradition, history, and myths in a manner that begs the question of how they exist today. Mahmud links disparate times, places, and perspectives through diagrammatic drawings that chart the impact of colonialism and the Bengali diaspora. For the work in this exhibition, he poignantly interrelates his own and fellow Bengali immigrants’ contemporary experiences moving to New York with Vivek Bald’s research in Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America, a meticulous reconstruction of Bangladeshi immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that “reveals a lost history of South Asian sojourning and life-making in the United States.”
In his multilayered palimpsests, Mahmud uses both established and invented iconographies combined with images he draws from historical photographs. He creates seemingly disjointed visual narratives that explore the process of remembering our own cultural histories and those of our neighbors through interconnected depictions of old palaces and forts, spice trees and herbaceous plants, wild animals, migrational and geographical traces, and colonial traders. “Living and confronting different cultures, regions and horizons vacillated most of my art projects, which made me a person of mixed feelings. But I don't want to lose my own culture, history, and legacy,” he says, emphasizing the imperative of his visual storytelling.
Tracing the paths of these complex legacies, Mahmud illuminates their continuum to the present Bengali immigrant communities in New York City. Mahmud, whose father and grandfather were academic historians and writers, has liked to read itihash (history) and vugol (geography) since he was young. Drawing and painting in a wide array of media, he now juxtaposes themes of socio-political culture, tradition, history, and myths in a manner that begs the question of how they exist today. Mahmud links disparate times, places, and perspectives through diagrammatic drawings that chart the impact of colonialism and the Bengali diaspora. For the work in this exhibition, he poignantly interrelates his own and fellow Bengali immigrants’ contemporary experiences moving to New York with Vivek Bald’s research in Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America, a meticulous reconstruction of Bangladeshi immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that “reveals a lost history of South Asian sojourning and life-making in the United States.”
In his multilayered palimpsests, Mahmud uses both established and invented iconographies combined with images he draws from historical photographs. He creates seemingly disjointed visual narratives that explore the process of remembering our own cultural histories and those of our neighbors through interconnected depictions of old palaces and forts, spice trees and herbaceous plants, wild animals, migrational and geographical traces, and colonial traders. “Living and confronting different cultures, regions and horizons vacillated most of my art projects, which made me a person of mixed feelings. But I don't want to lose my own culture, history, and legacy,” he says, emphasizing the imperative of his visual storytelling.
Installation images byAdam Reich
| color_catalog_firoz_mahmud_inscaping_legacies.pdf |
