TEACHING/LEARNING

In a country like Pakistan where Art, for most people, is still not considered a viable profession, it is no surprise that the importance attached to its study is nonexistent and it is certainly a second-class citizen among other subjects taught in schools and colleges. Although some content named art appears in every class but Art and Art teachers both lie outside the periphery of educational enterprise. A subject without much practical utility, for most, is placed in the service of leisure activities at school that any bored housewife, without relevant qualifications, can potentially teach. What needs to be understood is, how art contributes towards; critical thinking, alternative ways of seeing, multi-cultural and intercultural understandings, free expression, psychological development and divergent pedagogy, avoiding simplistic interpretations (mostly stuff that we speak about in writing only), making it extremely essential for the Art teacher to posses a comprehensive understanding of not just the context of Art but also be well informed about the ‘process’ of constructive communication of knowledge/information.

Beaconhouse National University’s (BNU) School of Visual Arts & Design (SVAD) has taken the initiative to start a Master in Art Education. This MA is the first of its kind in Pakistan, where artists very likely proceed down the road of teaching Art, however education in visual arts is not sufficient qualification for ‘teaching Art’. The program is spread over a period of 3 summers, designed particularly for in-service teachers and practitioners, to pursue this degree without having to leave their respective jobs. This summer was the first summer of the program where some 20 or so art teachers from various parts of the country came together “to examine the variety of environments through which Art forms reach their audience” (borrowed from the description of the program). Most students in the program held BFAs or MAs in visual arts and aimed to acquire a deeper understanding/knowledge of the pedagogical and critical issues, active engagement/interactions, dialogues, reciprocal learning, experimentation, switching the role of a teacher with that of a facilitator/mediator, drawing connections between art and non-art activities and most importantly, asking questions, in theory and practice. Allow me to present to you, their final studio projects that raise some important questions about art, teaching, teaching art, role of art teachers, role of institutions and role of spaces, all very intelligently demonstrated through the public activities designed by the two groups, executed on July 20^th, 2011.

Group 1 (Saima haq from Karachi, Asad Hayee, Rohma Khan and Zahra Ali from Lahore) had designed an activity for the Contemporary Painting’s Gallery of the Lahore Museum. Choosing three paintings by Shakir Ali, Gulgee and Sadequain, they had installed a table and a chair against each for placing the puzzles whose pieces when put together recreate the very painting. To my surprise, the otherwise deserted Lahore Museum, was buzzing with eagerness and purposefulness on that day. Dressed in white, the four of them were well aware of their role as facilitators and were great with inviting, helping/assisting everyone to understand and achieve their goals. The simple act of looking at the painting and trying to assemble the puzzle, very intelligently, touches upon a number of significant issues, such as, looking, seeing, observing, analyzing, doing, knowing, remembering, imitating, playing, teaching, making, naming, dialoguing, e.t.c and raises important concerns about making museums (especially the Lahore Museum) educational, inviting and fun, also it is highly effective in fostering active engagement with arts that could potentially stimulate a desire to investigate further. 

Where as, the three ladies in the other group (Nazia Anwar from Karachi, Ayesha Attiya and Zoona Kundi from Lahore) bravely hit the streets on this very hot July afternoon. They would start making drawings on the walkways of the central horseshoe in liberty market, which was an excellent venue to explore/question/critique/make use/explore the potential of a public space for a few hours of communal free expression. As the people would start to gather around them, only then they would offer colored chalks, providing the children, men and women (who, one would hardly expect to participate) a chance to participate. And so the crowd grew bigger and bigger and bigger. Time/development of time (spent, invested, required for the drawing to disappear eventually) and its transitory nature was certainly the important factor here. This ‘encounter’, with Art (medium and activity) and people, brings to my mind Bourriaud’s theory of ‘Relational Aesthetics’ that seeks to offer a criteria to analyse encounters with contemporary society and contemporary art, while investigating the public and the private. Art, spaces, geographies, human activity are hence, all relational, having bonding, sociability, dialogue and self expression at its foundation. Despite the heat, their investment, eagerness and the display of tremendous energy and enthusiasm was extraordinary. Articulating the tensions between art and society, such ‘Situations’, while favoring dialogue over monologue insist upon use rather than contemplation, creating conditions of exchange.

IN LOVING MEMORY

The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.—
(Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle - Thesis 37).

    Cinema is one of the most glaring manifestations of a ‘spectacle’, to the extent that cinema is synonymous with spectacle. It conjures images of extravagant display and performance, much of whose appeal derives from its visual power and ability to hold the gaze of the viewer. This spectacularity of the filmic medium, organized around the production and consumption of images, is highly dependent on the skills of its actors. Through this consumption, in the sense of belief or to give credence to, the actor elicits emotional responses from the audience, becoming exemplary heroes of the spectator’s life. Such an exemplary hero is the subject of the exhibition, titled ‘Icon’, organized jointly by the Lahore Arts Council and the Rohtas 2 Gallery to pay tribute to Rani on her 18th death anniversary. The driving force behind the exhibition is Rabia Anwar, her daughter, a painter, whose work has always been inspired by the woman, Rani.

    Rani, whose acting career span over almost three decades, needs little introduction especially among my parents’ generation. My father remembers her as an electrifying performer while my mother still bears in mind, her dialogues with that trademark wit and rhyme. Admired for her picture perfect beauty, her versatile acting and dancing that has rendered, some of the songs picturized on her, as classics in the history of Pakistani cinema. Rani is an icon, functioning as visual shorthand for a particular cultural era. 21, notable and emerging artists were asked to make work for this tribute show, including; Asim Akhtar, Abdul Jabbar Gul, Adeel Ahmed, Adeel uz Zafar, Ahsan Jamal, Ali Azmat, Amber Hammad, Asad Hayee, Atif Khan, Hassan Mujtaba, Madhia Sikander, Mohammad Ahmed, Muhammad Ashraf, Risham Syed, Sadaf Naeem, Saeed Akhtar, Saira Dar, Sheraz Faisal, Zeeshan Memon and Rabia herself.

(left to right) Ali Azmat, Icon, acrylic on canvas - Sadaf Naeem, Untitled, oil on canvas - Mohd Ashraf, Untitled, acrylic and embroidery on canvas stretched oner tonga roof.

    Since its Rani’s face, whose form directly reflects the thing it signifies, most of the works in the show presented a physical likeness, picking key images that define her iconic status within her acting career, yet sticking to the face. Such an approach on one hand links the development of celebrity culture within the technological development of modern day image making while on the other hand, to be interested in a portrait as a record of what the subject looked like is not the same as being aesthetically interested in the portrait as representation. Some of the portraits ended up being mere surrogates for their subject, lacking an aesthetic interest, as Scruton writes, “that an aesthetic interest in representation is not only for the sake of its subject but in representation for its own sake”, (Arguing about art: contemporary philosophical debates by Alex Neill, Aaron Ridley, pg 193, Routledge, NY, 2002) which makes one wonder about the works’ reason to be, why recreate a replica of her image, when it already exists as an image, does changing the medium alone help? However, there were a few works in which this confrontation with Rani’s image is accompanied by some other visual codes/clues that help the viewer read the work beyond its face value.

Adeel Uz Zafar, Star, 20" x 24", mixed media on photographic paper, 2011.

Amber Hammad, Count the Circles, digital print on canvas, 2011.

Zeeshan Memon, Untitled, oil on canvas, 2011.

Adeel uz Zafar’s mixed media on photographic paper, titled ‘star’, uses humor, irony and exaggeration, combining romance and horror in an attempt to thrill and terrify the viewer, in order to present an idealized portrait of a difficult life. Amber Hammad’s perception of Rani was bi-fold: an object of desire and a role model (perhaps). Her digital print on canvas is a reproduction of Rani’s image from a dance performance, manipulated to replace Rani’s face with Hammad’s. Such impersonations are a recurring feature in Hammad’s work. Zeeshan Memon’s 3 feet by 4 feet oil painting, speaks of the Pakistani Cinema in general and the cultural/gendered stereotypes it instills. The image presents two (male and female) headless bodies, possibly the hero and the heroine, holding hands, the hero wearing a kurta is holding a klashenkov in his other hand. The heroine’s fat thighs, flabby arms and a pot-belly are revealed through fitted flowery tights and a bright (short) kurti. The visual clues provided here speak of romance, violence, pleasure, irony of the armed act of romancing, gender codes and a very different notion of beauty that Punjabi or Pushto cinema promotes. Memon’s painting also makes subtle references to the, now obsolete, tradition of cinema board painting, but the scale defers that reference.
    The act of looking at these works is not any less voyeuristic than the cinema itself, at once hallucinatory and distanced, suggesting the space of an imaginary world, with which the viewer is engaged privately but disconnectedly. Also, it reproduces traditionaist/ symbolist reading of the female as either muse or femme fatale. Just as the narrative of film’s effect locates the power of the gaze within male spectatorship, similarly the works intentionally (I hope) fetishizes the female into a sexual object and spectacle. Asad Hayee’s tie, titled ‘theater of indifference’ is a good example here. Rani’s two images, as a cabaret dancer and a tawaif (courtesan), repeated on a digitaly printed canvas to make the tie speaks of pleasure and consumption, presenting the female as an ‘image’ while the male as the bearer of the look, referring to the automatic assumption of a male spectator, common in a society like ours. Similarly Ahsan Jamal and Madiha Sikander’s ‘untitled’ collaborative piece, which unfortunately was enclosed in an acrylic box, appears to be an interactive book (perhaps). The cover of the book is an old Nikon film camera, with a peeping hole in place of the lens, through which a ‘dream girl’ kind of an  image of Rani is visible. It is the same cabaret dancer image that has also been used by Hayee on the tie. Jamal and Sikander are also making references to the way camera reflects, reveals, and even plays on the straight, socially established interpretation of sexual difference, the camera’s phallic presence and the attributes associated with a camera, such as; shooting, aiming, e.t.c makes it even more masculine. The voyeuristic feature is so prominent that it would be hard to give an example of a work where its absent.

Asad Hayee, Theater of Indifference, digital print on canvas, 2011.

Ahsan jamal & Madiha Sikander, Untitled, mixed media and gouache on wasli, 2011.

    Themed shows are a very ambivalent thing. It is often a pretext to the show and a framework for the works but not an aim in itself, yet it has the potential to turn into an aim and that’s when it becomes mere illustration. It is important for the theme to sit nicely in the space, not be imposing and remain a pretext. Despite the fact that this bridging of high art and popular culture is a unique idea for us and more so, the show intends to raise funds for a noble cause of facilitating a free ambulance service for the patients of Rani Rafiqun Memorial Hospital and not to mention that despite all setbacks it liberated an art exhibition from the boredom and confines of the burqa, guns, the flag, the missiles, and the minarets, acknowledging fantasy, play and spontaneity, the works demand a little less space and a lot more light than the Alhamra can offer.

The Myth of the Artist

 

Shy, unshaved, preoccupied, constrained, dry, exceedingly serious, unhappy, dissatisfied, confused, strange, idealist, eccentric, cranky, highly skilled, intelligent, restless, unconcerned about his clothing, lonely, masochist, promiscuous, blasphemous, irritable, cares little about others, compassionate, irresponsible, alcoholic, ambitious, irrational, prone to anxiety and depression, straight forward, uncompromising, modest, emotionally raw, obsessive compulsive, devoted to the unceasing study of his profession, unappealing, pensive, temperamental, eccentric social behavior, suicidal, misunderstood, crazy, nihilist, unusual, rebellious, opinionated, self righteous, poor, highly sensitive, seer of truth, a modern day shaman or sage, e.t.c.

   
    Ask a thousand people to define an artist and you will gather similar adjectives. Across disciplines, creative people including poets, painters, writers, filmmakers, musicians, e.t.c are mythologized as being long suffering, making sacrifices both personal and financial to facilitate/create their work. The rebellious Manto, whose compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcohol became the cause of his death, the starving and lonely Sadequain, the secluded Zubeda Agha, and the controversial Iqbal Hussain, are only a few examples. The myth of the tormented artist suffering for his or her art has endured for more than a century. This image of the artist, surrounded by mystery and magic, rebellion and inner struggle, is common knowledge. Addictions, suicidal temperaments, promiscuity, unbalanced behavior, misanthropy…all these traits have been expected of the great creators almost as a matter of course. We hold onto a myth that artists need to be filled with grief, stress and turmoil in order to create great work. Is this phenomenon an inevitable conclusion, a condition, a fate or a choice of the artist? The two words ‘starving artists’ suggest a figurative and literal willingness to ‘die for art’. Where does this image come from? Is the notion of the ‘mad artist’ a historical reality? Are they the cause or the effect of the stereotypical read of the artist?
    How many times have you and I felt that family, friends, and people we don't even know are, in some way, typecasting us as economically naïve, foolish, or even irresponsible for pursuing our creativity? How many of us have succumb to the pressure of this typecast and gotten that safe day job because we distrusted our instincts that we could not only survive as artists but thrive? And even at that safe day job, the vice principal of the school, who happens to be my boss, pointed out that I am extremely snappish, nicely concluded as, “well, all artists are temperamental!”   
        Art history relics on the myth and the myth of art cannot survive without being connected to the artist’s life. Reading an artist’s character from his work or reading the work from his character, in both cases the events in the life of the artist become more important than the work itself. With a little bit of mythical glitter, artist then becomes a celebrity, an icon. Great art becomes popular with art history’s construction of the artistic subject. Griselda Pollock in her essay “Artists’ Mythologies and Media Genius, Madness and Art History” writes that this preoccupation with the individual artist is symptomatic of the work accomplished in art history – the production of an artist’s image for works of art, posited as the exclusive source of meaning, the ‘expression’ of his/her creative personality. She argues that art history’s focus on the narrative in the writing of history can be designated to literature rather than a historical discourse.

    The area that has been given most attention when discussing artists’ personalities is the intrinsic connection between genius and madness. It is common knowledge that artists are subject to mental illness and many writers have invested in making such connections. The notion that ‘trauma influences creativity’ is established as an unquestionable reality. Aristotle once claimed that "there is no great genius without a mixture of madness". We do know that Rembrandt put on one of his finest suits and gassed himself, Rothko slit his wrists in his NY studio, Van Gogh cut off his ear and died of a self-inflicted gunshot to his chest, Sylvia Plath placed her head in the oven, with the gas turned on, and the list goes on.

    This magic and mystery around artists, not to say that its entirely false,  has made them available as a favorite subject for novels, plays, television, and the romantic image of the tragic genius best suits the medium of film. Some films concern fictional artists while others are based on real historic figures, in both cases it creates curiosity, mystery and romance around the figure of the artist. Premature deaths increase their iconography and the subject becomes all the more desirable if he committed suicide, was killed or was incarcerated in a lunatic asylum. The many examples of films made on visual artists (mostly painters) like Caravaggio, Modigliani, Pollock, Toulouse Lautrec, Camille Claudel, Vincent e,t,c clearly demonstrate that and tends to focus on the long suffering years of his (rarely her) life.

    These films do the job of drawing attention to the practice of imaging the ideal. But what do these Hollywood flicks do to our way of looking at art and artists? Do they only reproduce the many clichés associated with artists? Does this glamour and romance distort the facts of the history or is it understood as the filmmaker’s artistic liberty? Regardless of the issues, through these films, art does seem to be reaching a wider audience and even drawing some curious audience members to the museums.
    The problem of disentangling fact from friction is perplexing for even the knowledgeable viewer. As John A.Walker, in his book “Art and Artists on Screen”, uses the word, ‘faction’ for the diffusion of fact and fiction found in such biographies where the film-maker has the artistic license to take all kinds of liberty with history even more so when it is not a documentary.
    Do artists today still have the same constraints? Or is this just our collective need to find something more in the doldrums of life? It is not surprising that the contemporary “artist” no longer has to make anything. He has become his own myth.

"...Every exploration is an appropriation." - Roland Barthes

After All is an art exhibition that opened on the 11^th of May, at Royaat Gallery, Lahore. The curator of the show, Quddus Mirza has grouped around fourteen works by eight artists in this exhibition on the theme of appropriation. I must admit that the theme of the show did motivate me to head all the way to the mall road in the scorching heat on a Saturday afternoon. I was excited to see how these artists have substituted the voices of others for their own.

Appropriation is the legal term for the practice of reworking images from well-known paintings, photographs, etc., as one's own work. Inherent in the process of appropriation is the fact that the new work recontextualizes whatever it borrows to create the new work, in most cases the original 'thing' remains accessible as the original. Of course, appropriation in art is nothing new, art practice has a long tradition of borrowing, adopting and recycling styles and forms from what came before, but what is interesting here is the relationship of authorship between the artist and the art work, although there is no doubt about the fact that appropriation art is, indeed, art, and that those who practice it are the authors of their works, but it does violate the traditional conception of authorship. The term ‘appropriation art’ became a genre in the 80s, especially with Sherrie Lewine’s work which consists of famous Walker Evans photographs, rephotographed by Lewine out of an exhibition catalog, and then presented as her own with no further manipulation of the images. The Estate of Walker Evans saw it as copyright infringement, and acquired Lewine's works to prohibit their sale. Such practice is often termed as neo-conceptual art.

After a long prologue to appropriation, I’ll now return to After All. My first reaction; the space did not suit the number and size of the works displayed. It’s a ridiculously small space for hanging fourteen works, most of which were large, and the works certainly demanded more attention to hanging – a possibly good exhibition sadly marred by the size of the gallery, it was extremely difficult to appreciate the works, some were even hanging in the office among landscape paintings encased in massive gold frames that were certainly not part of the show. However, few of the works did stand out.

Far from undermining the concept of authorship in art, Ayaz Jokhio’s This is not Magritte’s Painting, in fact reaffirmed and strengthened it. Like Lewine, by simply painting a precise copy of Magritte’s This is not a Pipe and claiming it as his own, while openly acknowledging that it is a copy, Jokhio poses a certain kind of challenge to the concept of authorship. This is certainly not a Magritte painting because it is a painting of a Magritte painting. Its very simplicity and multiple ambiguities that are very much intentional work very well for the painting, but it reproduces what the original work by Magritte, titled This is not a Pipe, does. Isn’t recontextualizing a necessary condition for appropriation? Magritte’s This not a Pipe is of course, only a picture of a pipe, a painting, a representation, does not represent a pipe but something else, it isn’t the true pipe but it nevertheless refers to a pipe, but not a pipe to be smoked – opposing and resembling the pipe at the same time. It speaks of separation between linguistic signs and plastic elements, also, it speaks of belief, resemblance and affirmation confronted by denial/negation and disbelief. The work is transformed from visual to text while emphasizing the abstraction of reality.

Amber Hammad’s Mona Lisa and Maryam, challenge ideas of originality, drawing attention to relations between power, gender and creativity, consumerism and commodity value, the social sources and uses of art, and the ways in which context affects the viewing of pictures. Reproduced as a large print, she assumes the central space in history by replacing Mona Lisa with her own image, where as, Maryam refers to the images of the Virgin Mary produced/reproduced in numerous history paintings. Maryam is a photograph of a woman, clad in a burqa, carrying a child with magazines and baby-wipes sitting next to her, while the arch in the background symbolizes the Islamic architecture. Both are an attempt to claim authority over history of art and women, attuned to trace histories, memories and the layers of influences, also blurring the frontiers between truth and falsehood. Hammad’s use of camera takes these instances of enactments/impersonations away from a live occurrence to an evidentiary object questioning the nature of truth/reality in constructed representations while “photography guises the directorial into documentary” (Crimp Douglas).

Imran Channa’s Badshahnama series and Making of the History series, is a collage of images from historical references such as; the most celebrated history of Mughal Kings in Badshahnama, cut and paste to form a pattern of decontextuaized/displaced imagery, reshaping, distorting or perhaps revealing the manipulations/questioning the authenticity of historical references, reducing them to hallucinatory fictions.

            Here's the rub: if artists are going to appropriate, they need to "add to" that which they appropriate. Attitude and intention count for much in this genre. Irony, metaphor, condition, counterpoint, or even artistic flair can make appropriation into reconceptualized art.

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.