This is probably the most comprehensive article (at least in terms of the range of his work) Artwallaa has seen on Khadim Ali.
Artwallaa views Khadim Ali's art as one of the most important bodies of work emanating from Pakistan contemporary art movement.
His breadth and experimentation of medium, diversity and historical context of ideas, the discipline and perfection of execution, extensive museum quality shows, inclusion of local context, and impactful narration of his ideas, makes Khadim Ali the leading contemporary Pakistan artist, right after the 'Fantastic Four'*.
Some great images in this article - enjoy reading and viewing the article!
Your 'Koala Tapestry Appreciating'
Artwallaa
Source: ABC AU
Hazara artist Khadim Ali goes from murals to miniatures to monumental tapestries and his largest exhibition yet
By Hannah Reich for The Art Show
Supplied: Institute of Modern Art/Rhett Hammerton
)Supplied: Institute of Modern Art/Marc Pricop
)Two of these tapestries now hang at Brisbane's Institute of Modern Art (IMA) in Invisible Border, the largest solo exhibition of Ali's work yet, where he blends ancient and contemporary stories, symbols and skills to tell stories of war and displacement.
From murals to miniatures
Ali was born in 1978 in Quetta. When he was a child, his grandfather sung him stories from the Shahnameh or Book of Kings, a 10th century AD epic poem written by Persian writer Ferdowsi.
"Me and my other siblings, we were making swords for ourselves ... pretending that we are the heroes [in the Shahnameh]," Ali recalls.
He remembers seeing Pakistani army planes fly over his home, and stealing pencils, erasers and paper from his father (a carpenter) to draw.
"I used to draw those aeroplanes, something very modern, into the stories of Shahnameh [and other ancient stories]," says Ali.
ABC Arts: Garry Trinh
)By the mid-90s, Quetta had become a major recruitment point for the Taliban.
Ali was one of the many teenagers who fled the Taliban and the city, crossing the border into Iran.
In Tehran, a group of fellow Hazara refugees, who worked as construction labourers and lived in miserable conditions, took him in.
At first he worked as a labourer, but he was able to show his drawings to a local art teacher and propaganda muralist who painted images of the supreme leaders of Iran, including the current Ayatollah, Ali Khamenei.
"He was so ashamed of doing [those murals] ... he was against the [Iranian] revolution, but because the government wanted him to do these big murals on the public buildings, he had to do that," Ali says.
"He asked me to do that, because nobody knew me in the city."
Supplied: Milani Gallery
)In the course of painting a mural, Ali was picked up by police and deported back to Quetta.
Back in Pakistan, Ali scaled down from murals to the Persian tradition of miniature painting — which he was first exposed to in illustrated versions of the Shahnameh — and won a scholarship to study the form at Lahore's National College of Arts in 1998.
Supplied: Institute of Modern Art/Marc Pricop
)'Humiliated, dehumanised and demonised'
Ali and his siblings had played at being heroes when they were children, but it is demon-like creatures that have come to regularly appear in his miniatures, murals and tapestries, often embodying both good and evil.
The seed of this motif was sown in this childhood, but only germinated later in life.
At school in Quetta, Ali had been bullied for being Hazara; as an adult, he discovered that even in a Shia Muslim country like Iran, the predominately Shia Muslim Hazaras were still regarded "an unwanted figure in society".
ABC Arts: Garry Trinh
)While in Iran, he was subject to violence and persecution; meanwhile, Hazara people were being massacred in Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"Those things were the thing that made me think about how the Hazara is [treated] and I travelled back to Afghanistan ... to research how the Hazara has been humiliated, dehumanised and demonised in Afghanistan," Ali says.
It was 1998 and Afghanistan was under Taliban rule. Ali was beaten and mocked at checkpoints.
At Kabul's National Archive of Afghanistan, he read texts that described the Hazara people as 'rebels', 'infidels' and 'ugly'.
"I found this enormous similarity of the life of Hazaras with the demons of the Shahnameh," says Ali.
Supplied: Museum of Contemporary Art
)But when he visited Hazara people living in Bamiyan caves (where two ancient giant Buddha statues were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001) they described demons in positive terms; as chubby, strong, hard workers.
"It is because the Hazaras have a history of being Buddhist ... and in Buddhism, demons are the protector of the temples," Ali explains.
Turning to tapestry
The Hazara people are from central Asia, where there is a rich tradition of tapestry, and Ali grew up watching his grandmother and mother weaving, stitching and embroidering, their designs inspired by nature and animals as well as the Shahnameh.
After the 2011 explosion in Kabul, Ali tried his hand at weaving, but decided it was a better use of his time to design tapestries and bring in skilled artisans as collaborators.
Supplied: Institue of Modern Art/Marc Pricop
)At first weavers — predominately Hazara women — would work at a giant loom in his Kabul studio, but that proved difficult with regular bombings in the city, as well as cultural precepts against women working under the same roof as men.
By 2017, Ali had developed a new method that meant embroiderers could complete sections of his tapestries in the safety of their own homes.
"These are the people who really needed this work, because this everlasting war in Afghanistan has taken so many of their loved ones and the breadwinners in their family," says Ali.
"I was also very happy to learn something from them."
Supplied: Institute of Modern Art/Marc Pricop
)Invisible Border 1 — the 9-metre-long tapestry that headlines his IMA exhibition, depicting soldiers and planes, mythical animals and heroic figures — was completed in this fashion.
Ali may have upscaled his work, but the miniature painting style is still found throughout his work, including in his monumental tapestries.
Invisible Border
While Ali was living and working between Pakistan and Afghanistan, he was gaining attention in Australia, where he was invited by art institutions to exhibit his work and conduct workshops and talks.
Ali and his immediate family migrated to Australia in 2009, sponsored by Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) under the Distinguished Talent Visa.
He had kept his work small enough to transport while travelling between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but in Australia he was able to expand the scale of his art and explore a new element of his identity.
"I was a Hazara in Afghanistan, and then I became Pakistani. And then I became Australian."
ABC Arts: Garry Trinh
)The latter, which features prominently in Invisible Border, was made in response to the 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires.
"I felt like I am a koala during the bushfires and I'm running for my safety and the safety of my family," Ali says.
Supplied: Institute of Modern Art/Marc Pricop
)Ali's work has been well-received in Australia, and has been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of NSW (where he served on the board of trustees from 2015-2018) and QAGOMA.
"My faith has been changed by being an Australian," he says. "I'm practising my art freely here."
But Ali recognises that he has crossed borders and thrived in ways not afforded to other Hazara people, or to refugees in immigration detention.
"'Invisible Border' is referring to the line of the otherness that is invisible, but you can still feel it as a life of minority in Pakistan or in Afghanistan or even here in Australia — you see [it in] the treatment of the refugees, how children are now behind the bars," says Ali.
"[I want visitors to the exhibition] to understand this land of Australia as a collective, and as a land that is providing opportunities that we are always taking for granted."
Invisible Border is on at the Institute of Modern Art Brisbane until June 5 and then on at UNSW Galleries from August 20 until November 20.
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