ArtDayME: Mohammed Kazem (b. 1969, Dubai, UAE) is a pioneer of contemporary Emirati art who creates conceptual explorations of the environment through works on paper, video, photography and installation. Kazem’s works synthesise the continuously evolving and shifting debates about modernity and the status of citizens within and outside their nation-states.

He was a member of the Emirates Fine Arts Society early in his career and was acknowledged as one of the ‘Five’, (including Hassan Sharif, Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim, Hussain Sharif and Abdullah Al Saadi) an informal group of Emirati artists who represented a vanguard of conceptual and interdisciplinary art.

Kazem studied painting at Emirates Fine Art Society, Sharjah, U.A.E. (1984 – 1987), and in 2012 earned an MFA in Sculpture from The University of the Arts, Philadelphia University.

He participated in formative international group exhibitions including Emirates Arts, Sittard Art Center, Netherlands (1995), 5 UAE, Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen, Germany (2002) and Numbers–Time–Signs, Dorothea van der Koelen Gallery, Mainz, Germany (2003) and Arab Express, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2012).

His works can be found in a number of institutional and private collections, including Arab Museum of Modern Art, (Qatar), Sharjah Art Museum (Sharjah), Barjeel Art Foundation (Sharjah), Sittard Art Center (Netherlands), JP Morgan Chase Collection (USA), Deutsche Bank Collection (Germany).