Imran Qureshi
Jihadi John
Imran Qureshi is a Lahore based leading Pakistani artist and is highly internationally acclaimed. Whereas Jihadi John is a terrorist whom we also know as a video artist appearing in several videos of beheadings. He is the one who performs the beheadings and speaks to his viewers directly looking into the camera a scripted text/speech about why he is going to commit the killing.
Imran Qureshi’s painting at Sharjah Biennial
APS Attack, December 17, 2014
So what is common between these two and the images above? • They both spill blood and this is what has made them distinguished. • Both create sites of death and destruction • The theme central to their work is violence • They both aestheticize violence, making it visually more appealing • Both spread terror. Terrorists directly and Qureshi indirectly as his work is a constant reminder of the lives lost and the blood spilled.
One must ask why would anyone compare an artist with a terrorist? They both have different in fact contrasting ideologies and roles. Throughout the history artist and warrior had their specific roles. The warrior fought battles while the artist glorified the act and the heroism of the hero through his/her art or condemned the barbarianism and bloodshed of the war and the warrior again using his art, making us love or fear a warrior. They both needed each other. But now the roles are confused in the age of digital media. Terrorist is not just a warrior but has also become an artist, he has access to all the contemporary media to document/represent an act of terror. For instance ISIS fighters not only commit the beheadings but they also document the act in the form of video or images and media shares this documentation in a fragment of a second. These acts of terror are carefully staged and aesthetically designed and documented, sometimes shot with multiple cameras to make them visually engaging and more terrifying. The research shows that they employ the same visual techniques and camera angles used in Hollywood action/thrillers and also draw inspiration from video games where the terrorist not only kills but also shoots the video in first person perspective. The sites and locations are also carefully chosen. No wonder these videos are so popular and serve as a clever rather glamorous propaganda campaign to market terror and its cause. They have mastered the technique of documenting a live act in such a way that it becomes a work of art in itself, which I am sure, including myself many performance artists struggle with.
The definition of the modern art and artist was based on how destructive and shocking it was and how radical the artist and his work was but now when we have seen images like APS attack and the videos of beheadings and stoning rituals and when such images have become a significant part of our collective memory rather dominate our collective memory, artist has to constantly struggle to create something as shocking, ugly and destructive. Based on the above definition of art, we can say that the terrorist is as radical as any contemporary artist.
But the question is why do we fear one and appreciate the other. Why is one image terror and the other art? We know that the blood in the second image is of the real people and this is what makes it terrifying and authentic at the same time. One is real while the other is not.
All art created after the iconoclasm is just the representation and has been criticized as to question its authenticity and reality. Even the photographs were used to represent a certain political ideology or as propaganda to build an image of the leader. But the terrorist videos and images are real as we know that someone cost his life in order to make that video or the image. It is interesting how previously the iconoclasm was introduced by the religious belief system to destroy the icons and images but not anymore. The terrorist now is iconophile. He has made us believe in the image and we know that whatever we are seeing in an image has really happened, which is why we fear the image. Thus the terrorist becomes more radical and political than any contemporary artist. And artist and terrorists here become rivals.
From Abu Ghraib Prison released in 2004
Lithograph by Richard Serra
The real challenge for an artist is to create an image as shocking and as radical as that of a terrorist’s. The images that we saw from the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay detention camps are replicated (and most of them are mere replicas) by many artists. These images are shocking, ugly, destructive and terrorizing at the same time but most of all they are real. So what kind of an image artist should create in order to counter that? No matter what he creates will remind us of the image that is already plastered in our memory and we know is real. But this should not stop an artist from creating art neither do I want an artist to stop competing. However it is imperative for an artist to stay relevant to respond to such images and the political reality of their time and be critical not just about their context but of their content too.
Which is why I have chosen Imran Qureshi as an example here. I think Qureshi is very clever as he has managed to stay relevant by constantly changing with time and also to shock and somewhat terrorize people. It is a fact that terrorist has borrowed heavily in terms of aesthetics from contemporary art but Qureshi draws inspiration from the terror aesthetics and builds onto that too. For this reason his work is as unique as that of a terrorist’s. Although he pretty much replicates the violent images of death and destruction but with his own signature style which has evolved organically through the passage of time.
Staying relevant and being seen is not so effortless. It is a constant battle for an artist, perhaps his biggest challenge to create something that becomes part of our collective visual memory (e.g. artist Petr Pavlensky recently got media’s attention all around the globe for nailing his scrotum to Red square in Moscow as a protest). I believe all contemporary artists can relate to this struggle and especially in Pakistan where you see less art and more violence and documentation of it, widely disseminated by media. In this media driven world where we are fed with images, artist does not stand a chance. Media has played a very active role in both aestheticizing violence and curating terror. The curation of art is only limited to a few places dedicated to art and art institutions, which is why artists should take their work to people and display in public spaces as well as choose alternative media to curate their work.
Qureshi’s work Upclose
This research was presented at the International Humanities Conference at Forman Chrisitian College, Lahore. The pictures are taken from various sources on the internet.