“No garden is without weeds” (Thomas Fuller).

When we have some knowledge about the author of a certain work of art, we naturally conclude that the work bears witness to his/her experiences of life. This overlapping circle of life and art is not a mere accident, but a relevant necessity. Not to say that a work of art is only a transcript of events in an artist’s life or there is no such thing as autonomous art but this is where lies the convenience in understanding art. One good example is my interpretation of David Alesworth’s new body of work, titled ‘Gardens of Babel’, currently on display at Rohtas 2, Lahore, from 16th Feb – 23rd Feb 2011.

Alesworth, David, Grandfather's Riddle, C-print, ed 1/3, C-print, 2011

The work on display is an amalgam of various interests as disparate as; landscaping, a long history of involvement with crafts and popular culture of Pakistan and teaching art, that are brought together as if only natural. A detailed (3 paged) artist statement was available for the visitors, describing his intentions while contextualizing this body of work, a practice very rare. What struck me as interesting about the writing is the third-person narration, maintaining a balance between subjectivity, objectivity and the amount of information available to/shared by the author, providing him a great flexibility when talking about the ‘I’. The statement is so comprehensive that perhaps it would have made more sense if I had only used his statement instead. But reading it only after I had made some notes has helped me reaffirm my interpretations of the work which otherwise would have left me wondering whether my reading/interpretation has been manipulated after reading the artist’s words or has the work successfully made the artist’s intentions/aims known to the me.

Alesworth, David, Garden of Babel, giclee print 2-6, 2010.

Alesworth, David, Constellation, 2010, giclee print, ed 2-6

Ranging from photography to sculpture and installation, the show features an ambitious body of work, an abundance of visual material, such as; photographs of car plates registered in Lahore forming a large grid, photos of botanical name-plates of plants in Latin and Urdu forming another grid, microscopic (photographic) studies of an insect, large sculptures in metal (displayed outside the gallery) forming pyramids, among others. But the two large floor pieces in particular were the highlight of the show, titled ‘Garden Palimpsest’ and ‘Hyde Park Kashan’. These hand-knotted oriental rugs, faded from too much foot-traffic are respectively layered with the architectural plan of the Garden of Versailles and the neighborhood design/street layout of Hyde Park (London) where the Crystal Palace was built in 1851 to house the ‘The Great Exhibition’ (also referred to, as the ‘International Exhibition’) displaying the arts and crafts from all over the world, celebrating the industrial technology and design. This reference to the exposition at Crystal Palace is perhaps an inquiry into the colonial past, as by hosting the exhibition, Britain boastfully advertised its position as an industrial leader and colonial power. The mapping of the Garden of Versailles onto the surface of an oriental rug also makes references to power, displacement and ‘otherness’. While successive (oriental) rulers (in particular) have created the most exquisite and luxuriant ornamental gardens in their palaces and towns, the term ‘Orient’ speaks of ‘otherness’. “Orientalism is the study of Near and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, and peoples by Western scholars. The term was more widely used to refer to the works of French artists in the 19th century, who used artistic elements derived from their travels to non-European countries. But it has now come to acquire negative connotations in some quarters and is interpreted to refer to the study of the East (the Other) by Westerners, shaped by the attitudes of the era of European imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries” (wikipedia). Furthermore, the image of a lush and fecund garden is one that is deeply rooted in both the religious and cultural heritage of the East, inspiring generations of textile artists to weave emblems of foliate abundance into their rugs. Where as, David in his statement writes; “The initial carpet intervention arose from an unsuccessful application for funding to create an on scale image of part of the gardens of Versailles in the desert of UAE in 2007. This idea of addressing an impossible layering of cultural attributes across time and space shifted laterally onto the loaded surface of the traditional hand-knotted rug. Its impetus arose particularly from the franchising of the Louvre to the UAE which was currently afoot - The disappointment of the project rejection was the impetus for him to reanimate the rugs as art works. Concurrently and whilst researching the notion of the garden as a palimpsest (even more so in the post-colonial context) he encountered Foucault’s theory of the ‘Heterotopias’. The term itself derived from Latin, “a place of otherness” and, in medical terminology the word was used to describe parts of the body that are missing such as amputations, excisions and tumours that are both of the body and extraneous to it.”

Alesworth, David, Hyde Park Kashan 1862, detail, 2011.

Alesworth, David, Garden Palimpsest, Rug work, 2010,

One wonders whether it talks of power, displacement and ‘otherness’ on a more personal level also, since David is an ‘English’ artist (in the context of the colonial history) who has been living in Pakistan for over two decades.