Throughout the history, most of the art has been representational. Even when art was symbolic, or non-figurative, it was usually representative of something. For that reason, we have learnt to look at art as a representation of the artist’s subjective observation/expression/experience synthesized with the viewer’s observation/expression/experience of the real. Thus seeing finds meaning in reference to our experiences and knowledge. However, it was in the beginning of the 20th Century that the emphasis began to shift. Artists, restricted to either imitating nature or telling stories, allowed themselves to bypass literal perception and reach into this otherwise impenetrable world of unconscious emotion. Starting with the Impressionists, the emphasis was shifted to painterly qualities/techniques and use of color in exploring art’s ability to sidestep our consciousness and stir inner feelings, gradually enabling the artists to enter a realm of unbounded imagination that was slowly straying from the conventions of art’s representational roots and moving towards a pure abstraction.
This abstraction that does not attempt to represent external, recognizable reality but seeks to achieve its effect through formal aspects alone (using shapes, forms and textures) is the subject of Sana Ali and Mehr Javed’s recent show;
Indivisibilities, exhibited at Rohtas 2, from 4th Jan to 12th Jan, 2011. This departure from any real visual references is less ‘viewer friendly’ to most of us than representational art. This is not to say that abstract art isn't a thing of beauty, in fact it relies heavily on beauty, aesthetics, design elements, their interrelations and is more than often transparent regarding its process. But since art is not just to be seen but understood and interpreted, we often find ourselves at a loss with relating to, recognizing, and understanding this lack of recognizable imagery. This very escape, from the preconceptions evoked in the viewer’s mind due to his/her prior knowledge/experience with that easily recognizable visual, is perhaps the purpose/aim of this method.
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| Javed, Mehr, Cluster, toothpicks, 2010. |
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| Javed, mehr, Stasis I and II, perforation on paper, 2010. |
Javed’s earthenware casts of geometric patterns (titled Stasis), the various perforations on paper (titled Stasis II or often left untitled) and the wooden matchsticks clumped together to form a textured surface, are primarily an engagement with the materials and the tools at hand, drawing attention to the playful undecided process of making rather than the subject of the work. Javed’s interest, in how rather than what is being said, is perhaps a reaction to today’s too aware overtly political meaningful rational art, replaced by serenity that is devoid of any depressing subject matter, a divergence for both artist and the viewer and a complete abandonment of anything other than the pattern and the surface and their relationship with each other. Process defining execution is made explicit when an almost meditative action of repeatedly pushing a needle, to make Perforations, perhaps made the paper so compliant that the artist decided to give it a fluid almost floating form that resembles the surface of water or references to the topography of a landscape. All these decisions are dictated by the medium and aesthetics alone and the viewer is let free to interpret as he pleases.
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Ali, Sana, 4/9 from the series 9 Movements, 11.6 x 8.2", pencil on paper, 2010.
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| Ali, Sana, untitled, carbon drawing, 2010. |
While on the other hand, Ali’s work is not completely devoid of visual references that hold meaning for each one of us. In fact, her delicate minimalist drawings of patterns in pencil and carbon, at once allude to window mesh and the safety grills installed in our houses, speaking of disjuncture and restrain, referring to the social conditions and the reality of life specific to this region. However, the fragmentation and repetition of this geometry mingled with referential quality is reduced to accuracy and simplicity that emphasizes the pattern more than it speaks of the meanings attached to it. Her forms are strictly two-dimensional mediated only by the vertical and horizontal structures of the patterns.
The works in the show, characterized by geometry and lack of color speak of purity uninterrupted by the distractions of meaningful images, so that all of your brain power is devoted to looking and experiencing as opposed to understanding and interpreting. One can either allow to open ones self, let in the energy or simply spend a few seconds trying to make sense of the work and walk away. But are these sort of Greenbergian ideals of purity attainable in this time and age, are categories determined by aesthetics alone still valid, is this divergence in harmony with contemporary life/practices and thought, is its closeness to the decorative arts a problem, and most importantly, how does it engage with social, political, cultural and personal issues for a more proactive engagement with art or are we free from such categories, are perhaps questions worth asking.
