FACT OR FICTION?

Life in Pakistan is a struggle on daily basis, just making through the day is heroic enough, a feeling shared by most of its citizens. Having completely submitted ourselves to the currents of a rotten social, political and economical structure, floating and steering with this flow, we have become so helpless that it seems almost useless to exert our bodies and mind or to show any signs of diligence, perhaps we are waiting for the promised savior. But amongst us are a concerned few that haven’t given up and continue to voice their concerns peacefully, show resistance, talk about reformation and do not remain unaffected by the killings of hundreds and thousands of citizens. These concerned citizens who are not yet completely heartless, unlike some of us, are the subject of Nashmia Haroon’s work, titled ‘Times of Dissent’, at Rohtas 2, Lahore, from 9th March – 17th March, 2011. She has photographed peaceful protests and demonstrations of people who have walked the streets to voice their angst without a political motive.

We do know that art does not exist in vacuum and is highly informed by issues that have a profound impact on the way we operate in relation to the socio-political reality of our everyday lives. Furthermore, we are confronted with the problem of an increasingly dark portrait of the country and its people, represented through the local as well as international media. Not to say that this projected image is entirely false, but this flood of negativity associated with the country (also represented in popular Art, through the repeated use of stereotypical imagery, such as; bearded men, burqa clad women, missiles, guns, e.t.c) merely replicates that oppressiveness, while reinforcing the stereotypes instead of challenging them. Where as, Haroon’s work, is a display of photographs that speaks of all the above mentioned issues, but through an unfamiliar/non-stereotypical imagery. It speaks of a softer image of Pakistan and its people, which is perhaps more poignant and palpable as compared to the otherwise repeatedly projected imagery that doesn’t even shock us anymore. This presence through absence is best exemplified in a photograph, titled ‘a Prayer for Pakistan’, which is a photograph of people gathered around the liberty roundabout to light candles and say a collective prayer for the well-being of the country. The image speaks of violence, injustice, sense of insecurity and hopelessness prevalent in the country without the use of a violent image, existing some where in between abstraction and description. It allows the viewer to “fill in the blanks” and a close looking at these photographs makes one a silent witness as well as a participant with Haroon in her meanderings through these protests. In the eyes of the photographed subjects, is a touching sense of sorrow accompanied by an underlying feeling of strength.

Photography is a medium whose status in the realm of fine Arts has continuously been contested ever since the invention of the camera. It wasn’t until the 20th century, that photography became accepted by the gallery system as Fine Art. Some people would still argue whether photography is an art or a new form of documentation seen by the eye instead of the mind but we live in an age where all standards of judgement about art have been challenged through the breakdown of conventional modes of artistic expression. Photography is perhaps the most fitting visual form for the subject, precisely because it is a medium that makes references to journalism, a medium that is suitable for documenting the plight of the everyday life, a medium whose truth is never questioned for it is an evidence of reality, a moment frozen in time, while recategorizing documentary or otherwise functional photographs in an art context.

The work raises some important questions about ‘art’, ‘photography’, ‘documentary’, their roles and our social responsibilities that requires a discussion which might not be possible in this essay.

“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.

How to formulate an art that is political and at the same time practically effective and beneficial?

Going to art exhibitions these days is not very different from watching the news channels. By analogy, think of the enervating monotony of the political conventions and the dulling effect of speech after speech calling us to this agenda or that (corruption, political instability, terrorism, religious extremism and suicide bombings are amongst the favourites). But of course, art is not created in a vacuum, and is undoubtedly a product of the socio-political environment in which artists work. One such demonstration was exhibited at Rohtas 2, Lahore, titled “The Soil of My Land; nisar main teri galyon kay…” from 4th Feb to12th Feb 2011, by Khadim Ali and Reeta Saeed.

The subtitle of the show “nisar main teri galyon kay…” is a poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz. It is in fact the first verse of the opening stanza, which is as follows;

Nisar main teri galyon ke aey watan ke jahan

Chali hai rasm keh koi na sar utha kay chalay

Jo koi chahnay wala tawaf ko niklay

Nazar chura kay chalay, jism-o-jaan bacha kay cahalay

My salutations to thy sacred streets, O beloved nation!

Where a custom, that none shall walk with his head held high, has been invented

And if a devotee yearns to go on pilgrimage

Then he must walk with eyes lowered and body crouched in fear

This reference to the poem emphasizes the fact that more than two decades after Faiz’s death, this subject still continues to hold a sense of immediacy. Khadim Ali’s work in particular, this reference to the verse and the fact that the exhibition was dedicated to the late Salman Taseer, all lament the decline of morality and the shadowy laws of this Islamic Republic, where persecutions of the poor citizens not only go unnoticed but are supported by the so-called maulvis encouraging bigotry and hatred because of a belief in a dubious view of Islam. As Faiz further writes;

Bane hain ahl-e-hawas muddaii bhii, munsif bhii

Kise wakeel Karen, kis se munsifi chaahein

Facing those power crazed that both prosecute and judge, wonder

Ali, Khadim. 'Untitled' series, gouache on wasli

To whom does one turn for defence, from whom does one expect justice?

Khadim Ali’s portrayals of the iconic demons with small horns and glowing red eyes accompanied by arabic text, denote the extent of misuse of religion for political reasons by the corrupt Islamists, rallying conflict, discrimination, injustice and intolerance. While Reeta Saeed’s work makes references to the troubled national and artistic identity of this land. Her use of (American, Indian and Pakistani) flags signifies international interference and political instability while the form of the flags makes references to the silhouette of a woman clad in a shuttle-cock burqa, as the small region about the eyes is grated to look like a concealing net or grille. And the large wall piece comprised of a metal bonnet of a car, on which a typical Persian/Mughal portrait of a woman is painted, references to the practice of miniature painting as equivalent to the popular culture of truck art/national pop art of the country, also blurring the distinction between culture of high taste and culture of popular tastes.

Saeed, Reeta, Untitled I, II & III, mixed media on canvas 2010    +     Untitled, mixed media on metal, 2010.                                  

The references made by the artists imply an intrinsic relationship between art and material reality and so it is an irreducible fact that we are bound to political arrangements.
But one profound by-product of such repetitiveness in contemporary Pakistani Art is that the various pieces lose their individual identities, drains much of their impact, and causes them to be perceived in terms of an oeuvre of redundant mannerism. Not to say that artists should restrict themselves to painting non-controversial subjects and leave political concerns to the politicians but we have become so used to/insensitive to the ‘representation’ of things/issues that Political Art seems clearly to be ineffective, (especially in front of capitalism which so effectively neutralizes its message). It seems to me that as long as the visual arts are practiced as they are today-made by artists in the isolation of their studios, consigned as commodities to galleries and museums, and made intentionally as artworks, as the kinds of things which the artworld deals in-then the effectiveness of art as "political" is at best only nominal. The "political" topics in art today are exactly the kind of topics which do not jeopardize the artworld. One way by which art can be genuinely politically viable is by rejecting art altogether and substituting the act and gesture, just like the politically active 1960's advanced the popularity of political action art.

An Aesthetic Experience:

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.

Javed, Mehr, Cluster, toothpicks, 2010.

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.

Ali, Sana, 4/9 from the series 9 Movements, 11.6 x 8.2", pencil on paper, 2010.

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.

MY NATIVE LAND:

The relationship between globalism and its complex intersections with the discursive constructions of nationhood continuously reshape our understanding of the self and society and demands a close attention. Issues of national identity are crucial to the creation of art under globalization, thereby turning artists into cultural ambassadors. Moreover, popular discussions on contemporary art almost invariably centre on issues of identities and touches significantly on the artists’ location in answering questions of identity while exploring human space. Perhaps the rise of these ‘new’ forms of critiquing/questioning/representing national identities can be explained as a response and reaction to globalisation forces.
Pakistanis in general and Pakistani artists in particular have been preoccupied with the very issue of ‘identity’ ever since the Partition of the subcontinent in 1947 and now under current political turmoil the issues of identity (national, cultural, religious, e.t.c) have become even more crucial. Ever since the incident of Sept 11th 2001, the expansion of media coverage has resulted in an increased interest in the country’s image, as the western diatribe against the Islamic world escalate. The country’s politics makes a fine spectacle with war looking over international affairs, an unpopular new president, a tanking economy, poverty, illiteracy, corruption, political instability, international interference, terrorism, religious extremism, over-population, unemployment, extremist suicide bombings, disturbing relationships with allies along with the displacement of tens of thousands of citizens by the catastrophic earthquakes and floods in the recent past.
Set against such a backdrop, the contemporary language of art in Pakistan is shaped by these existential crises and the task of their representation, conveying the stifled feelings that artists experience as individuals or as a nation and is also the subject of Ruby Chishti’s recent show Placed, Displaced, Misplaced, exhibited at Rohtas 2, from Dec 6th to 18th, 2010. Ruby is an artist most famous for her immensely powerful (intimate) narratives fabricated with ordinary/junk materials such as; straw, cotton wool, plastic bags, old clothes and newspapers, focused on her gendered relationship to the medium. Whereas, issues of displacement and this investigation into/commentary on the plight of the country displayed in her current body of work at Rohtas is a new interest for Ruby, though the medium remains the same. Both bodies of work (old and new), in the most simplified sense, are representations of the self, except the current work situates her individual ‘I’ within a collective ‘we’. Perhaps its the invariably negative images evoked at the mention of Pakistan, resulting in an increasingly dark portrait of the country (labeled as the most dangerous place in the world by some), that after eight years of living in the US, Ruby has now felt the need to address the troubled identity of her native land.

Chishti, Ruby, Map of My native Land,

42 x 54", Cloth, foam, wood, thread, foam, 2010

Chishti, Ruby, Portrait,

Cloth, thread, plastic, metal, foam

2010.

One of the works in the show, titled, Map of My Native Land, is an assemblage of cloth with hand-stitched minarets and other recognizable elements of Islamic architecture in green and white, confined within a gold ornate frame. Contrary to the proportion of white and green on the flag, here the white that symbolizes religious minorities dominates the green, yet the clutter of minarets and arches appear to be more noticeable and imposing, criticizing the illusion that religion and force can hold people together in the face of injustice and lack of democracy. Similarly, in Portrait, the prototypes of the Islamic arch reappear with a pair of hand-stitched scissors, possibly referring to the phrase; “running with scissors”, meaning; ‘playing with fire’/to endanger one’s self or perhaps, it also refers to the common superstition; that snapping scissors in the house causes contention and hatred among family members. The scissors, in this situation, appear to be in the hands of the corrupt Islamists rallying conflict, discrimination, injustice and intolerance.

Chishti, Ruby, Domestic Birds, Variable

Cloth, thread, plastic, metal, foam

2010.

Termite, Variable, Cloth, thread, metal, foam

2010

Alongside critiquing the extent of misuse of religion for political reasons, Ruby also tries to present an overview of some other unfavorable conditions prevalent in Pakistan today, such as the displacement of the flood victims and the presence of one of the largest refugee populations in the world. On one hand, Domestic Birds, is a piece that sympathizes with both victims; the unfortunate refugees and the flood-hit citizens. While on the other hand, Termite, a clutter of little tents, made of wire and cloth, in a corner of the gallery, growing along the wall, is possibly a comment on the destructive role of the refugees, implying that these Taliban turned Afghan refugees are destroying the country like a house eaten out by termites. Or perhaps, the little tents simply denote the thousands displaced by the floods and just as tired wood is helpless before an onslaught of termites, the weak structure of the Pakistani state is utterly helpless in coping with the unprecedented escalation in the number of those needing assistance. However, such associations were not fully articulated. I can’t seem to settle whether it’s the unnecessary repetition in expressing these ideas or the lack of a climax or a superficial investigation of the subject or a generalized over view of the present or an attempt to address too many issues in one body of work or an imbalance between an engagement with the medium versus engagement with the subject matter, that seems disturbing despite the fact that the work provides the right clues for accessing it. Nevertheless, this is only the beginning of an exciting body of work, engaging with issues that have a profound impact on the way we operate in relation to the socio-political reality of our everyday lives.

Chishti, Ruby, Placed, Displaced, Misplaced,

Variable, Cloth, thread, foam

2010

Is it Art Activism?

We live in an age where the word ‘ART’ no longer means painting, drawing and sculpture alone. New methods of making art have been introduced and used since the early 1900s, in order to produce new results and therefore recast the role of the artist from a person making aesthetically pleasing objects to a revolutionary, overthrowing rather than enlightening. Performance Art is one such medium that explores the possibilities for art to intervene in humanitarian crisis through a language related easily to the common language of the streets. Performance art is an off-spring of conceptual and fluxus art movements, that originated in the mid 20th Century in the West to challenge traditional ways of making and looking at art, to break down conventional ideas about "what art is," and to minimize the distance between art and the everyday.
On the other hand, art from Pakistan has for the most part, been occupied with traditional mediums. However, this decade has seen the development of a form that may not be ‘Performance Art’, per se, but nonetheless it marks the beginning of an engagement with performative art practice that explores the possibilities for a pro-active engagement with the socio-political issues while reconfiguring the status and function of art from passivity to active agency and direct confrontation.
Pakistanis in general and Pakistani artists in particular have been preoccupied with the very issue of ‘identity’ ever since the Partition of the subcontinent and now under current political turmoil the issues of identity and its representation have become even more crucial, resulting in an interest for a self-defined identity.
Self-representation’s most literal form is self-portraiture, which is the equivalent of autobiography in literature. Both narrate a self that ‘we want to be/present’ rather than a true likeness of ourselves, hence both are a kind of a self-conscious performance. It is this performative relationship between self-portraiture and autobiography that has made performance an appropriate medium for contemporary Pakistani artists for an inquiry into the construction of the self, in order to redefine identity (caught between the forces of socio-economic modernization and religious orthodoxy), to liberate the self from traditionally bound situations and to expand the modes of self representation through a process of self-knowledge and self-telling.
Folowing are some of the many examples;

Bani Abidi’s The News (2001):

Abidi, Bani, The News, still from video, 4:24 sec, 2001.

Abidi enacts Indian and Pakistani official newsreaders, in a four and a half minutes long video, reading the news on state run channels of the respective countries. The news bulletin relates an inconsequential neighborly dispute extended to a hostile enmity between a Pakistani and an Indian over the ownership of an egg, up in arms, the neighbors charge one another with the offense of theft. One speaks literary classical Hindi and the other austere Persian Urdu, employing cultural references in language and costume (the Pakistani newsreader covering her head, reminds one of the PTV days while the Indian newsreader wearing a sari makes references to the doordarshan television), the differences of nationality have been emphasized.
Abidi plays both women, stressing her close familial ties with the neighboring countries. She addresses the question of more than one identification of the body in negotiating between self and other, while renouncing a claim over either national identity. Her physical presence in the work increases the importance of this extensive subjectivity of the artist. Abidi demonstrates identity’s performative approach to self-actualization in a continuous replacement of her Pakistani self by her Indian self and vice versa. She challenges the notion of the portrait as a simplified likeness of one’s self and the impossibility of representing a true self. None as well as both images conform to truth, claiming a new identity brought forth by this union of congenital and the adopted.

Abidi’s critique on the construction of history and identity in post-Partition psyche, demonstrated in her non-sensical conflicts with herself, reminds one of Saadat Hassan Manto’s ‘Toba Tek Singh’. Like Toba Tek Singh, Abidi is also a victim of the violence and collective madness caused by the partition. The use of humor for both, is a tool for practicing authority, as Freud writes “humor is not resigned, its rebellious – the ability to laugh at something allows you to demonstrate your control over it”.

Nilofar Akmut’s They Came Home to Roost (2006):
In this live performance, carried out in the red light district of Lahore, Akmut re-evaluates the question of a national identity in the wake of an accelerated process of economic interaction among countries and cultures.
Akmut demonstrates her deep disenchantment with the fact that the evils of the ‘colonial system’, instead of disappearing with political decolonization, not only persist, but have worsened. Prominent among the several of colonialism’s lasting manifestations is the varieties of what came to be known as the ‘colonization of the mind’. She seems to suggest that the post-colonial identity in the wake of globalization is actually a continuation of colonialism, but through different or new relationships concerning power and control. Today Pakistan is neither sovereign, nor independent or democratic. As Faiz Ahmed Faiz in his poem Dawn of Freedom (Subh-e-Azaadi) (August 1947) writes:
Yeh daagh daagh ujala, yeh shub gazida sehar
Who intizaar tha jiska, yeh who sehar toh nahin
Yeh who sehar toh nahin
jis ki arzo lay kar Chalay thay yaar
kay mil jaye gi kahin na kahin

Abhee girani-e-shub men kami nahin aye
Nijat-e-dida-o-dil ki ghari nahin aye
Chale chalo keh who manzil abhee nahin aye

Akmut, Nilofar, They Came Home to Roost, stills from live performance, 2006.

Akmut’s performance raises questions about the role of artists/practice of art in contributing to a constructive dialogue that might lead to the democratization of the cultural space and also help the audience and artist to negotiate the boundaries of freedom of expression.











Mehr Javed’s Altar (2007):
Forr a duration of 100 minutes Javed sits as a living sculpture inside a squarish niche built in one of the gallery walls. The audience was invited to decorate an ellaborate hairdo that was masking her face, with pearl pins resting on a ledge in front of the bust. This use of her body as an object creates a hybrid of sculpture and performance and challenges art’s static nature and viewers’ passive looking. In a complex interplay between imitation and the original, Javed represents the representational strategies of art objects while attaching the process of represented subjectivity to the very materiality of her body, asking the viewer to think of art and the nature of artistic enterprise anew while removing barriers between art and life.

Javed, Mehr, still from live performance Altar, 2007.

The open invitation to put pins in her hair is an expression of intimacy, allowing a sensuous contact between the viewer and the viewed, challenging the traditional divisions between art and audience, exploring what art is/can do for the fulfillment of the artist’s impulse to express/communicate. Here the role of the viewer changes from a removed observer to an engaged participant, demonstrating how self is continuously produced and reproduced anew through actions performed by others, denying the autonomy of selfhood.

stills from Altar

Amber Hamad’s Untitled series (2002):
What might be a primal dress-up urge for young girls, is the personification of the unconscious as well as a critique of the gendered definitions of womanhood and gendered difference in fairytales for Hammad. Trapped in between childhood and maturity in a surreal dream world, these pictures also reflect a withdrawal from creating works within the confines of pre-existing genres to liberate artistic expression from social control. This demonstration points to the construction of the supposed autonomous self as nothing more than a discontinuous series of stereotypes provided by the culture, in a reversal of the terms of art and autobiography. These masks of passive, dependent, beautiful, slumbering princesses, clamped over her face are metaphorically charged with mimetic signifiers of womanhood. These tales of patriarchal moral codes, in which women are pious, good and forgiving, suffering in silence without getting much in return for an unhappy life.

Hammad, 4/7 from untitled series, 60 x 40",  digital print, 2002.

The above interventions, borne out of a self-conscious rebelliousness, are centered on the belief that art can be a catalyst for change and their shared concerns open up possibilities for a pro-active engagement with the socio-political issues through a transfer of power. The works discussed in this study are simplified representations that often function as punch lines addressed to the lay-men, in trying to explore the possibilities for art to intervene in humanitarian crisis through encouraging and educating the populace. Dissolving the distinctions between high and low art, social and artistic hierarchies, this approach to art making develops innovative strategies for narrating the need for a social responsibility. It is an attempt to establish a role for art, similar to the radical role of poetry and literature during trying times in the past, when lyrical expression enlightened, stimulated and even mobilized the masses to the government’s dismay. Because of the way such art extends itself in the everyday life and because of the responsibility it claims, it no longer is a mere pleasant divergence or a pastime activity for the gentility, but a call for attention and resistance, a method borrowed from the street theater ideology that addresses the masses directly. It is not an attempt to describe, but to encourage a dialogue about the definition of both, selfhood and Art.

PAINTING WITH WORDS

“Once upon a time… in a land not so far, far away.. there lived a girl called miniature painting… She was a delicate yet seductive girl… not just beautiful but an accomplished story teller (a magic realist).. But one day her father, fearing her charms, locked her up in the basement of their home with the only facility of cable TV. At first she wept and wept … then she danced to the tunes of mtv and bollypop … and read the book. She debated it endlessly with the mirror till she felt faint, the frail thing that she was … But, alas, now there was no one around to even find this endearing … She missed being loved and sought after … once lively, and vibrant, her colour faded and as the year passed, the lustre left her. She was sad and lonely and her imagination was failing her… And finally she began to think about beauty and intellect … which did she love more?"

view of the gallery walls.

The vinyl lettering pasted on the walls of the gallery, tells this story of loss of innocence or rather loss of ignorance in Ayesha Jatoi’s new work titled ‘Mirror Mirror’. “Where ignorance is a bliss, tis folly to be wise”, perhaps ignorance IS a bliss, perhaps in lack of knowledge lies happiness, but this corruption of a sheltered mind is merely a fact of circumstances and not a choice made by the protagonist of Jatoi’s story. The work has a twofold (or perhaps three or fourfold) thematic value; to understand the development of history painting into a contemporary form that has spurred vigorous debate, as well as a critique of the gendered definitions of womanhood and gendered differences in fairytales, where women find themselves entrapped in ‘chambers’ of actual or perceived perimeters and the ‘mirror’ (as the title suggests) is the controlling metaphor that represents the mediated reflections, almost impossible to shatter to be replaced by a truer mirror in order to reveal a real or natural self. ‘She’ is perhaps an inventive alter ego for Jatoi’s identity as a miniature artist who at the same time is not medium specific but her work nevertheless is in dialogue with this very art form, hence working/living in-between mediums/selves, marking differences while the boundaries are under continuous negotiations. What sort of a new identity comes out of this union of the inherent and the acquired? (for both Jatoi and Miniature painting) I was quite curious about the nature of the book that ‘She’ read after she wept and wept, but ‘reading’ I guess is synonymous to possessing a deeper awareness here.

This show of miniature painting, without a display of pretty paintings of exquisite beauty and color encased in ornate frames, questions/critiques/defines/redefines what miniature is, a question worth asking. Is it an art of the book associated with its long standing history, hence defining the scale? Is it the laborious practice of pardakh? Is it only done on a wasli with a brush made of fine squirrel hair? Is it a certain kind of imagery or subject matter? Is it only about clinging to an exotic otherness to be accepted and viewed internationally? Etcetra, etcetra. In answer to that, right outside the entrance to the gallery, on a white pedestal, is placed a book enclosed in an acrylic box, opened to the page that explains the origins of the word ‘miniature’; which is derived from the Latin word ‘minium’, meaning red lead, along with its historical background. This information in the book is painstakingly crafted in very very small handwriting done with a lead pencil (or perhaps a siah kalam) by Jatoi. Concerning the politics of representation of Pakistani art, the neo-miniature, that has unleashed an interest unwitnessed in the past in this art form, “has deeply altered the practices of many Pakistani artists and altered the reading/viewing of public’s general views about art to a great extent” (Mirza, 2008, pg 58), about which there has been an inconclusive debate about its supplementary role in reinforcing cliché’s about Pakistan or Islam. If ‘Contemporary Art’ (as defined by Danto, Belting, Navarra and many others) is an end of reliance on a cohesive set of aesthetic problems for ‘a’ period in art history and is believed to be more of a social phenomenon or a tool for communication, depending on the effects of globalization, altering the maps of cultural geographies, then do we really need to invest in rooting artistic mediums in local cultures, histories and geographies?

This use of language evokes the experience of viewing and understanding of the subject for the reader/viewer, developing a visual investigation with written language, whose history can be traced back to the Conceptualists’ extensive inclusion of long/detailed titles concluding into the title itself being the work. It is hard to discuss the legitimacy of an art object when we are 40 years ahead of the times in which all hierarchies of an Art object have been rejected, transcending the traditional categories of painting, sculpture, photography, film e.t.c, rejecting all notions of right and wrong, giving the artist the complete authority to employ anything that he/she decides to entitle ‘Art’.
In The End (that speaks of recovery but nor relief) she returns home wiser.

-Mirza, Quddus, Show me the Money, 2008, Art India (art news magazine of India) volume XIII/ issue I/ quarter I.

Artist As Critic; Rethinking The Purpose of Art.

As an art student at NCA and later on as well, my work has been hugely criticized for its ephemeral and non-sellable nature. I was told, if I think of Art as a profession for myself, but engage in work/jobs other than art-making to support my practice and myself, then I shall consider Art a hobby instead. I use to think, if making money was a concern, then I wouldn’t have made this choice. Also, being an old fashioned woman, the idea of the starving, struggling, unrecognized artist is so gloriously compelling to me :p and almost a prerequisite of course that I didn’t pay much attention to the business-minded and just nodded away. but Saira Ansari doesn’t!
Her recent show at Grey Noise, entitled 'the work that will probably never end', asks, tough important questions about the intricacies of making, showing, framing and selling of Art. “She feels there is a contrived idea of what art and creativity should be and many artists find themselves adhering to these commercially viable stereotypes. Ansari uses this project as a platform to question the ethics of these politics and the mercenary attitude of the galleries in Pakistan, which she believes, behave more like shops and less as promoters of art and creativity” (project description from the email invite).

Artistic activity in part is a response to the invitation to ‘produce’. Subjected to the pressures of the market, most artists tend to make compromises with the medium, form, and content of their work, producing commodities rather than art objects. Or is it a coincidence that most (read all) of the contemporary Pakistani art is in the tradition of miniature art practice with veiled female bodies in confined claustrophobic spaces, depiction of bearded men with guns and fanciful arabesque patterns? Such artists are in one way or the other conforming to the demands of the market through making works that have started looking alike with very little variations. There certainly is a need for a critical inspection of developments in the politics of representation and the role of artists, curators and galleries in this demonstration. In that context Ansari’s contribution to the activity of ‘production’ is an absence of objects. She has decided to mail empty boxes/cartons of varying sizes to almost all art galleries in Pakistan as a polite declaration of her ‘objection’. The box is only a premise for the non-existence of the work, its emptiness refers to ‘absence’ as an evidence of the inability of (her) art expression to have meaningful existence under present conditions. This recalcitrance in the face of art authorities is begging for artistic autonomy from the institutions that attempt to frame it according to their needs. “The idea is to poke them”, says Ansari (during a public talk at the opening of the exhibition).

In order of priority, Ansari’s work is concerned with the critical discourse rather than formal issues, hence I am not going to talk about the aesthetics/quality of the works exhibited, although I do feel that, in trying to fill this gap between thought and its execution, Ansari has filled the gallery with an overwhelming amount of notes, sketches, text and boxes, which certainly needs much editing.
A similar reaction to the commodification of art, was seen during the conceptual art movement in the late 60s and early 70s in the West, that critically subverted the gallery as the location, determiner, owner and distributor of art. The movement has had a tremendous influence on artists’ publications that substantially helped to facilitate this connection between authorship and authority. Ansari’s work punctuated with question marks (both literally and metaphorically) remains within the realm of criticism, which due to a lack of critical writing have remained unanswered. A turn towards theoretical issues will certainly help answer some very important questions, but what Ansari’s public talk (however brief) at the exhibition did, her work did not do, she might want to re-consider the relation between content and its execution.
It is probably too early in the life of this project to pass any judgments, as the name suggests, this project will carry on for the rest of Ansari’s life and she will continue to engage with upcoming shows by other artists at Grey Noise. It will be interesting to see the shape it takes during the course and the responses it will generate from the curators and other artists, as the nature of the project hugely relies on its reception. If lucky, what we might see after this is the beginning of the formation of friends and foes. Hopefully, people with common interests will begin to form alliances in order to examine the purpose of making art and to interrogate the nature of cultural production, starting a dialogue in the best interest of the given conditions of art, for a much needed revolution.

Ansari's will be online soon after the opening and photographs, videos, discussions and commentary can be accessed at www.thesaproject.wordpress.com.

The Common Man

I look down my office window and on the street and notice the sweat stained back of a man, bent over his cart, rearranging the fruits and fanning the flies away.

I see a fellow, naked to the waist, balancing a container of cement on the top of his head while making his way up the building that is under construction.

On my way back home, I look outside the window of my car and notice a rickshaw driver across the street smoking a cigarette while waiting for customers.

And then there is one tying the drawstring on his shalwar after peeing along the side of the main road.

Another knocks on the window of my car, insisting that I buy the rosaries that he is selling.

These men from our everyday environment that surround us all the time, are the primary source of inspiration for Basir Mahmood and the subject of his works in his debut solo exhibition, In the Time of Telling, recently shown at Grey Noise. His photographs and videos realistically depict these subjects, stressing the banality of life. Mahmood, who is a fresh graduate of BNU, emphasizes the importance of class identity as a significant social identity in people’s daily lives and its influence on the formation of our society and culture.

Mahmood, Basir, 'Untitled 5,7 &10', collage with/on archival photo paper, 12 x 16", 2010.

Mahmood, Basir, still from video Manmade, 2010.

While trying to explore the system of class divisions and the formation of social identities, Mahmood’s intentions range from emphatic documentation to specific criticism of social inequality. A series of 12 untitled photographs, sized 12” by 16”, is a type of documentary p1.hotography that voyeuristically features his subjects in candid situations within public places without their knowledge, in fact the images give an impression of being extracted from a surveillance camera installed on the street. Where as, in his video, Manmade, he assumes the role of a director. Manmade is an approximately 10 mins long silent video, for which a common worker wearing a loongi and kurta is paid to undress in front of the camera and get into a three-piece suit provided by the artist. The artist is not physically present in this work but you nevertheless feel his presence while the model is in continuous dialogue with the man behind the camera (Mahmood), seeking his approval before putting on any item of clothing. Manmade is perhaps the most poignant and devastatingly hard-hitting piece in the show, and the most confusing for me. On one hand it is clearly a critique of the experiences of the working class in urban settings, while on the other hand it victimizes the subject and replicates the very social hierarchies that it wishes to criticize, with a great potential to dissolve into mere parody. Despite the difference in his changing role when handling the camera between the various works, a compassionate observation remains constant in Mahmood’s work. Perhaps with his video Manmade, the artsist is also, sarcastically referring to the plight of the colonial subject, who has learnt the ways of a ‘civilized’ ‘democratic’ society, only by wearing a suit, tie and boots.

Art that is concerned with the life of the common man refers back to the works of artists like Courbet, Millet, Walker Evans, e.t.c and in particular to the implications of the socio-realist movement of the 19th Century which later became a very important movement in America during the ‘Great Depression’. Also, Mahmood’s focus on the realities of contemporary lives of the working class, particularly the poor is comparable to the social consciousness of the Realists in depicting the subjects as they appear in everyday life. His interest in the lives of the majority and not the elite, focuses on the representation of objective reality instead of excessive emotional jargon.

Mahmood, Basir, 'Portrait Series', 40 x 26", archival photo paper on 350 gm paper, 2010

We do not build up our impressions of one another trait by trait. Instead, we bring to the interpretation a number of pre-existing prototypes and our observations of people leads us to categorize them as being like one or another of these prototypes, existing inside or outside our own familiar world. Portraiture, for Mahmood is attuned to trace histories, memories and the layers of influences that make up a person’s identity/prototypes. His portrait series, 40” by 26” each, is a careful assimilation of various faces with socio-economic and cultural similarities, to create one portrait, critiquing the ‘construction’ of social identities and assigned social roles (prescribed by the society) versus the reality of their individual identities. “Although the lips, eyes, nostrils, and ears all belong to different men, when juxtaposed they accumulate into a generic whole, questioning the relationship between identity and social generalizations within a disintegrating society”1. Camera, being the most accessible and immediate for such explorations, adds a layer to the way real is perceived, questioning the nature of truth/reality in constructed representations while “photography guises the directorial into documentary”2.

Mahmood, Basir, ‘My Father’ (video still), 2mins 9 sec looped, shown on 3.5 inch screen, 2010.

We have learnt to look at art as the artist’s subjective experience and personal opinions translated in the form of objects/images, which calls for the knowledge of the identity of the artist, their life events and their statements (which often acquire more value than the work itself). Hence, the biographical materials available for a definitive or even a tentative interpretation of creativity grant extreme value to the artist. Unfortunately, I know nothing about Mahmood, for my validation of the content/context of these images. But, one video in the show, titled My Father (approx 2mins long), without revealing the face of the subject, shows the hands and a few gray hair of the beard of an old man (presumably the artist’s father) continuously failing at his attempts to put the end of a thread into the hole of a sewing needle. Those worker hands indeed caught my attention, which makes me wonder if Basir Mahmood is a man living amidst the world he has portrayed.

'Beneath the Surface'

An absolute definition of art is impossible to achieve but popular discussions on art almost invariably centre on its two principle tasks, self-expression and self-discovery; a process motivated by an insatiable appetite to express one’s self through imitating or re-creating the world which aims to understand and interpret subjective experience translated into objects and the means of these art objects stem solely from the subjective desire of the artist. Hence, in the most simplified sense, art activity is expressions and statements of personal opinions or feelings with the purpose of stimulating the viewer’s imagination. And it is this pleasure of reasoning provoked in the viewer that determines the merit of the work. But because of the subjective nature of taste, one cannot speak negatively of an artistic creation, only of one's inability to find artistic merit. But wouldn’t we be surrounded by mediocrity without judgments?

As I sit here, putting together my thoughts about a recent show at rohtas 2, Beneah the Surface, I try to deal with my lack of responsiveness to most of the works in the show and brood over the unsettling debates about looking and pleasure and beauty and judgements. There certainly needs to be a balance between the creative endeavour of the artist and the creative projection of emotion and feeling on the part of the viewer, which Barthe refers to as the punctum. He writes, “the punctum is what I add to the photo and which nonetheless is there already” (Heron, 1996, pg 398).

This two day preview of works by Faseeh Saleem and Mohsin Shafi, is being taken to Sweden in October, where Saleem is pursuing his MFA in textile design. He is a recent graduate of BNU, where as, Shafi did his Bachelors in graphic design from NCA and is currently enrolled in the MA visual arts, at NCA. Saleem’s content driven photography and Shafi’s photography driven content explores the issues of identity and its representation, reflecting their educational backgrounds in their treatment/relationship with their mediums. Both seek a self-defined identity while questioning incomplete or discontinuous identities within social domains. Shafi’s work, like the stamp it bears “Aalmi Rohani Tehreek-i-Anjuman-i-Sarfarooshan-i-Islam” is concerned with identity in an unspecific manner and approaches the subject of prescribed moral codes and contemporary issues like fundamentalism and extremism because of Pakistan’s primary associations with stereotypes and sensational news. This over generalized approach to ‘identity’ (spiritual, religious, gendered, national e.t.c) is further layered with highly personal/self-referential statements in the form of titles and despite being subjected to similar socio-political issues, one struggles to empathize with the subject. I also wonder about the importance of the text printed on the images, which on one hand is so small that hardly readable, becoming a textured background for the image, while on the other hand its continuous repetition highlights its significance. This text, probably xeroxed from an existing flyer/advertisement might have worked better if used in its original form, maintaining the truth of the material while questioning the role of this medium to rally conflict and explore the possibility for democratic change. Although Shafi’s work provides the right clues for an accurate interpretation of the work, but ‘to express’ and ‘to express well’ are not the same.

                                           Shafi, Mohsin, print on archival paper. 


Saleem on the other hand, is asking the viewer to consider identity particularly in relation to gender and culture. His work, “Everyone carries a shadow”, is a series of six 3.5”x5” black and white photographs printed on canvas, the size and its enclosed (box like) framing both suggest an intimacy of subject matter. In it is displayed, his hairy male belly open to spectatorial gaze. The camera focuses closely on the immediate area around his navel as his left hand carefully rests in the corner of the frame with hair embroidered onto the image to make it appear more tangible. The choice of the image, lack of color, composition and the hair sticking out of the image makes me think of Vito Acconci’s silent film, “Openings” from the 70s. Here, as the camera frames Acconci's stomach in close up, he painstakingly pulls out each hair from his belly, eventually displaying his navel to transgress his masculinity and assigning him to vulnerability that is usually aligned with feminity or to simply become gender neutral. It is interesting to note that the medium of embroidery in Saleem’s work also questions these gendered roles in a similar manner, as embroidery is a medium deemed appropriate for women.

Saleem, Faseeh, Everyone Carries a Shadow, digital print on canvas 

Both Saleem and Shafi, like Acconci are the maker, the subject and the object of their work, shifting the focus between the artist’s body as a site from that of a metaphor, in a back and forth momentum for the representation of the self. Using his body as a metaphor on which cultural and personal references are threaded, Saleem seems to be suggesting that the body communicates as much or as little as the personal and public notions on this issue. Through this work, he indulges himself in a self-scrutiny for the sake of authenticating experience and existence as a means towards self awareness in an attempt to liberate the self from traditionally bound situations. This very image is multiplied a number of times and juxtaposed on a 10”x14” canvas titled “Personality in Shadow”, which results in a simultaneous recognition and misrecognition with the image, mirroring the relationship between
identity and its representation.

Acconci, Vito. Openings, 1970, 14 min, b&w, silent, Super 8mm film on video

It is quite heart breaking when a single image has so much potential and it brings you this far only to leave you stranded on a road that leads no where. There seems to be an unsettling discrepancy between limits of the content and the medium and the work lacked a bit of a climax, “like pushing the work so you find yourself in a territory beyond the one you know” (Etchells, 1999, 52).


- Etchells, Tim. Certain Fragments, Routledge, 1999, London.
- Heron, Liz. Illuminations: women writing on photography from the 1850s to the present, Liz Heron & Val Williams, 1996, London.