Kiran Nadir Museum is exhibiting the breathtaking Parallax by Shahzia Sikander

For Artwallaa, Parallax is one of the most powerful works of art coming out of Pakistan in the recent past. It is being shown in Delhi at the Kiran Nadir Art Museum.

Go experience it!


Source: Honolulu Museum

Shahzia Sikander
"Pakistani-American contemporary artist Shahzia Sikander’s Parallax is an experience in itself.  Originally created for the 2013 Sharjah Biennale, and borne out of her road trip through UAE, this large video installation consists of  hundreds of watercolor, gouache and ink paintings, with traditional Indo-Persian miniatures, all interwoven with drawing and animation into a three-channel immersive artwork. The haunting music score is specially done by Chinese composer Du Yun who mixes new poetic compositions in classical and colloquial Arabic by three contemporary Sharjah poets. The result is a tense, eerie slow-burn sound art which features many ant-like creatures on video.  The power tensions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important transit chokepoint for crude oil exports in the Middle East, is the more immediate inspiration behind the breathtaking Parallax".

Source: The Week

Delirium in a techno-dystopic maze: Kiran Nadar Museum's latest exhibit

 By Sneha Bhura August 21, 2018 21:14 IST

  

A scene from Nalini Malani's 1973 Taboo, at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art

When you enter Kiran Nadar Museum of Art's latest exhibition, Delirium/Equilibrium, on video, film and kinetic artworks from the museum’s collection, prepare to be besieged by a sense of uncertainty and displacement. Bukowski's book title Tales of Ordinary Madness might flash through your mind's eye—not because the show recreates wild and weird stories from a city's dark underbelly, but because it feels like an apt description to simplify a group of bewildering works which play on light, sound, shadow, noise and speech/moving objects, images and gibberish. The result is a strange, funny, complex techno-dystopic maze stretching into the inner reaches of a dark and semi-dark gallery. The experience can only be equated to wandering lost and confused in a cavernous hideout, but persisting all the same for the many fascinating finds its many nooks and crevices hold.

As curator Roobina Karode explains in her note, "The world today is disenchanting and distraught, yet alluring and demanding, desiring poise and equilibrium." The show wants to respond to our collective drive towards "mechanisation, technology and and scientific knowledge", and the need to construct new architectonic forms in a “rewiring of the world”. But could this assemblage of disconcerting animation works, mechanised objects, echoing speeches of leaders and quiet, determined acts of resistance as performance, also speak to the dizzying political and social climate of absurd priorities and cacophonous disinformation? Or is this the future trajectory of art, when new media will more prominently collaborate, intervene and upstage in an age of post-human development? With another mainstream gallery (Nature Morte) in Delhi already hosting a show on art and artificial intelligence, this merits some contemplation.

The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane has a strong Pakistan presence

Works of five artists will be representing Pakistan in the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane (Australia) starting from 24 November. In total, works of 80 artists from 30 countries across Asia Pacific will be shown. Pakistan is represented by Naiza Khan, Aisha Khalid, Waqas Khan, Ali Kazim and Rasheed Araeen.

Looking forward to its opening



Spine,  2008,  Galvanized steel and suede leather,  H. 26 x W. 12 5/8 x D. 6 3/8 in. (66 x 32 x 16 cm)
Source: Asia Society

The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT9)

24 Nov 2018 – 28 Apr 2019
QAGOMA

Stretching from Iraq to Hawai'i, 'The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art' (APT9) will bring new and significant art from across the region to Brisbane. QAGOMA's flagship contemporary art series draws visitors with its unique mix of visual spectacle and cross-cultural insight.

Highlights will be a substantial number of newly commissioned works, as well as works by emerging, mid-career and senior artists and influential works that continue to shape contemporary art in the region. The exhibition will feature over 80 artists and groups whose work is notable for making an impact in contemporary art in its local context, including a large representation of Australian artists. Their works will reveal a number of preoccupations, such as the use of innovative approaches to indigenous traditions and modern thought, the re-imagining of histories or poetic narratives and the ability to show our universal yet diverse relations to nature and culture.

APT9 Kids will include interactive artworks, hands-on making, and multimedia activities developed in collaboration with exhibiting artists, especially for children and families. APT9 Kids on Tour will provide children and families throughout Queensland with the opportunity to enjoy a selection of adapted projects at their local venue.
APT9 will also include a symposium and extensive public programs, as well as an APT9 Cinema program.

The artists participating in the ninth Asia Pacific Triennial are:
Jananne al-Ani
Zico Albaiquni
Sadik Kwaish Alfraji
Monira Al Qadiri
Rasheed Araeen
Martha Atienza
Kushana Bush
Cao Fei
Gary Carsley
Roberto Chabet
Chen Zhe
Kawayan De Guia
Enkhbold Togmidshiirev
Erub/Lifou Project
Nona Garcia
Simon Gende
Lola Greeno
Gunantuna (Tolai people), led by Gideon Kakabin
Shilpa Gupta
Tada Hengsapkul
Gavin Hipkins
Joyce Ho
Hou I-Ting
Htein Lin
Images of the Crisis
Zahra Imani
Mao Ishikawa
Jaki-Ed Project
Jeong Geumhyung
Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner
Jonathan Jones
Karrabing Film Collective
Ali Kazim
Aisha Khalid
Naiza Khan
Waqas Khan
Kim Beom
Meiro Koizumi
Kapulani Landgraf
Idas Losin
Ly Hoàng Ly
Gregory Dausi Moah
Mochu
Yuko Mohri
Vincent Namatjira
Nguyễn Trinh Thi
Anne Noble
Aditya Novali
Elia Nurvista
Shinro Ohtake
Donna Ong and Robert Zhao Renhui
Alair Pambegan
Pangrok Sulap
Bona Park
Bounpaul Phothyzan
Souliya Phoumivong
Qiu Zhijie
Iman Raad
Margaret Rarru and Helen Ganalmirriwuy
Lisa Reihana
Peter Robinson
Handiwirman Saputra
Mithu Sen
Hassan Sharif
Tcheu Siong
Jakkai Siributr
Soe Yu Nwe
Herman Somuk
Harit Srikhao
Ayesha Sultana
Latai Taumoepeau
Tungaru: The Kiribati Project, led by Chris Charteris
James Tylor
Vuth Lyno
Munem Wasif
Boedi Widjaja
Areta Wilkinson
Women’s Wealth
Sawangwongse Yawnghwe
Pannaphan Yodmanee
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries

Zheng Guogu

 

Source: QAGOMA 

 

 

 

 

Not just a pretty face: The brilliant career of Nur Jahan, empress of India

Source: Economist


Not just a pretty face

The brilliant career of Nur Jahan, empress of India

Chauvinism has reduced her to caricature. Ruby Lal’s biography brings her back to life

 

Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan. By Ruby Lal. W.W. Norton & Company; 336 pages; $27.95 and £19.99. 

 

 

 

 THAT India’s Mughal emperors could be devoted to their queens is no surprise. The Taj Mahal, their most famous monument, was a homage to the memory of Mumtaz Mahal, the emperor Shah Jahan’s most-mourned wife. Less well-known is that Mumtaz’s aunt (and Shah Jahan’s stepmother), Nur Jahan, was, for 16 years from 1611, in effect India’s co-ruler.
 

 

In fact, according to Ruby Lal’s biography, she became “prime minister as well as empress”. Uniquely for a Mughal woman, her name featured on coins. Not until Indira Gandhi became prime minister in 1966 would India again be ruled by a woman. (Queen Victoria was rather hands-off.)

Not that Nur Jahan has been forgotten. Hers is a household name in South Asia, and her story has been told in at least eight films, several plays and many historical romances. But she is famous for having won the heart of her husband, the emperor Jahangir, with her beauty, and for using her charm to promote her own interests and her allies’. She came to be seen, in Ms Lal’s words, as “a gold-digger and schemer”, the “besotted” Jahangir as a “drunk, stoned and oversexed despot”.

Another accolade for Mohsin, another accolade for Pakistan!

Another accolade for Mohsin, another accolade for Pakistan. Exit West, 
Mohsin's latest novel, wins the first ever Aspen Words Literary Prize! 

Source: AspenInstitute

Contact: Caroline Tory

Program Manager | Aspen Words

New York, NY, April 10, 2018 ––Tonight, Mohsin Hamid was awarded the inaugural $35,000 Aspen Words Literary Prize (AWLP) for his novel “Exit West.” The award, which is one of the largest literary prizes in the United States, was established by the Aspen Institute to honor a work of fiction “that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture.”

 

“The book is my attempt to write against this growing anti-migrant sentiment,” said Hamid. “I wanted to portray migrants as heroes, not criminals. But more than that, I wanted to show that everyone is a migrant, even those who never move geographically, because moving through time, aging, is itself a form of migration.”

“Mohsin Hamid’s sentences are exquisite, capable of jaw-dropping surprise, elegant emotional exploration, and bone-chilling horror within a few clauses,” said the AWLP jury. “And by bringing the contemporary refugee crisis into countries that have mostly ignored the suffering beyond their borders, he forces us to ask ourselves how we are reacting to the crisis, and what potential we have to do better. In a world with 50 million displaced people, this is a novel that affects us all.”

 

 

Everything you need to know about Lahore Biennale - Make sure you visit!

At long last, Lahore will have its own Biennale. Kudos to the team of LBF and its sponsors - Punjab Government, Habib Bank and AAN Foundation.

Great for the city, its citizens, it artists and Pakistan overall too.

Make sure you visit .... many times!

Everything you need to know about Lahore Biennale 2018

Source: Dawn 

The Lahore Biennale is being held by from March 18 to March 31 with the support of the Punjab government and other sponsors.

For the public, the Lahore Biennale will open from March 18; however, a private viewing would be held today (Saturday). There would be a tour to Alhamra Art Gallery at 10am and film screenings, tour of artworks on display at Syeda Mubarik Haveli and Tehsil Park at 3pm.

The inaugural event of Lahore Biennale will be held at Hazoori Bagh at 5pm. At 6pm, there would be a guided tour of artworks at Lahore Fort and the introduction of Aga Khan Museum Project by Imran Qureshi. It would feature a preview of Shazia Sikander’s installation with performances by Ali Sethi and Du Yun.

On Sunday (March 18), opening of public art projects at Bagh-i-Jinnah will take place at 11am. After a performance by Mehreen Murtaza, there will be tours to artworks at Bagh-i-Jinnah and Lahore Museum, a preview of artworks by Imran Qureshi and Aisha Khalid at Shahi Hammam at 5pm, a qawwali at Masjid Wazir Khan at 7am.

On March 18, a symposium on abstraction convened by Mariha Lookman at Syeda Mubarik Haveli will be held at 10am and the Academic Forum and Art Speak at Alhamra Art Centre at 3pm.

The closing performances include a sketch by Salima Hashmi, a performance reading by Naiza Khan and dramatic readings by Zambeel.

Lahore Biennale Foundation director Qudsia Rahim says: “Our vision for the biennale is a decentered one which means that instead of curatorial authority being divested solely in one person, we have chosen to work through collaboration”.

The exhibitions and events for biennale will be held at Delhi Gate, Shahi Hamam, Sibeel Wali Gali, Masjid Wazir Khan, Lahore Fort, City Cinema, Yousaf Sali Haveli, Naqsh School of Arts, Mubarik Haveli, Mall Road, National College of Arts, Tollinton Market, Alhamra, Amrita Sher-Gil Residence, Lawrence Gardens, Canal Bank road from Dharampura underpass to Punjab University.

Over 50 artists and collectives will participate in the biennale, including those based in Bangladesh, India, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Sri Lanka as well as from Europe and the United States.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2018

From the Dawn archives: 'Sadequain passes away at 57'

Sadequain passed away on February 10, 1987. This article was published in Dawn a day after his demise.

From the archives: 'Sadequain passes away at 57'

February 10, 2018

 Source: Dawn

Facebook Count

Sadequain passed away on February 10, 1987. This article was published in Dawn a day after his demise.
The end came slowly, interrupting his schedule and striking heavily at a source of inspiration for the lovers of art.
His anxiety to complete the greatest undertaking of his life — a mural on the theme of Man and his Universe — was over by 3.30 a.m. on Tuesday when the cruel hands of death snatched him from us. The mural was to decorate the Bagh-i-Jinnah.
He died toiling in the noble cause of art and man and hundreds of times painted himself in the picture of a martyr. Truly it may be said that he died a martyr in the cause of truth and beauty.
Though he died a bachelor at the age of 57, Sadequain left behind several generations of mourners.
He had been working in the Bagh-i-Jinnah Hall since January 1986 and remained there till the end of the last month when he was taken ill. He was then removed to the JPMC with some heart ailment and later to the OMI Clinic in Depot Lines where he expired.

Snippet of story run by Dawn on February 11, 1987.

During his stay in the Bagh-iJinnah, he worked tirelessly for 12 hours every day and at times continuously for 36 hours to complete the job as quickly as possible. Most of the time he worked sitting on a small carpet. He faced no difficulty in his work.
Sometimes he ran short of colours and that was his only worry. His work was in the finishing stages when he was hospitalised. His frail body could not keep up with the giant's spirit which it enshrined.
The words of Ghalib are literally and metaphorically true of him:

"Aabgina tundiay sehba Say pighla jaey hai."

(The strong spirits are dissolving the decanter which contains them.)

He literally worked himself to death. A Niagara of masterpieces flowed from his brush for 32 years ever since he held his first major show at the residence of H.S. Suhrawardy at Karachi in 1955, and typically of him, left the entire collection there, to seek fresh fields and pastures new.
His largesse was princely. The poor jamadarni of Jinnah Hospital Special Ward received gifts of art from him no less than the high officials of state.

He set up a whole art gallery in Islamabad and gave it away to the nation just as he painted the magnificent ceiling of the entrance hall in the Lahore Museum and much else in Lahore, and presented it to the "wheat-coloured beauties of the Punjab."

He held exhibitions and won wide acclaim in numerous art centres of Asia, Africa, Europe, America and Australia. He had an intense desire to do something novel for the city of Karachi which he loved.
Mayor Abdus Sattar Afghani invited him to do a piece of his Quranic calligraphy for the upper floor of the Frere Hall. As a token of his love for Karachi, he had surrendered a plot of land measuring over 4,800 sq. yds. in Gulshan-i-Iqbal to the KMC for the construction of Rahman Islamic Art Gallery, a hall and an auditorium for holding Islamic art exhibitions and a training institute for calligraphy.

He never accepted any remuneration or money for any work done by him in mosques including the Shah Faisal Mosque in Islamabad.

Sadequain had presented 40 of his works, based on Quranic verses and done on the imported whitestones, to the citizens of Karachi as a gift after declining an offer of Rs 2.5 million for them by a government department.

Thereafter, he came to Karachi to work on the KMC Islamic Art Gallery where the gifted works were also put up. He called these paintings "Ilm-o-Amal" (knowledge and practice) and presented them to the mayor on Feb 15,1986.

He used to say that he did not know the number of his paintings as they would run into miles. His "Surah Yaseen" alone, if pieced together, would be about half a mile long in a row.

Sadequain was also acclaimed for his huge murals which he had erected at a number of places, including the Aligarh Muslim University, Mazar of Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam (Mysore), the venue of the recent Quran conference held in Delhi, the United Nations, Mangla Dam, Abu Dhabi Power House, State Bank of Pakistan building, the National Museum at Lahore, etc.

The Maldives' president, Mr Gayum Al Mamoon, who himself is an artist, had asked President Ziaul-Haq during his recent visit to the Maldives to send Sadequain to complete the calligraphy of Quranic verses at a portion of a grand mosque left out especially for him.

A similar request had come from Brunei and other places. Sadequain could not oblige them as he wanted to fulfil his commitment to the people of Karachi.

He was suffering from cirrhosis of liver for some weeks. His death was due to cardiac respiratory arrest.

The Namaz-i-Janaza and burial at Sakhi Hasan Graveyard was largely attended.
Prominent among the attendants were Mayor Abdus Sattar Afghani; [Karachi University] Vice Chancellor Dr Jamil Jalibi; Prof Karrar Hussain, Rais Amrohi, Jamiluddin Aali, Mr Mairaj Mohammad Khan, Mr Kamal Azfar, Syed Mohammad Taqi, Mr Ardeshir R. Cowasjee, Mr Abid Ali Shah, Jone Alia, Mr S.S. Jafri, IGP Salman Khaliq, artists Ali Imam, Iqbal Mehdi, Shahid Sajjad, Abdul Wahab Jaffer and Bashir Mirza, and TV artist Kamal Ahmad Rizvi.
His soyem will be held on Thursday at Imam Bargah Rizvia.
His family members said that his body was not allowed to be buried in Bagh-i-Jinnah or at his plot in Gulshan-i-Iqbal.

Some family members first approached the Mayor for permission to bury the noted artist within the precincts of Bagh-i-Jinnah. Later they approached KDA for burial at the Gulshan plot.
The Mayor and the Director General KDA allowed the burial near the main gate of Sakhi Hasan graveyard, North Nazimabad. The relatives also agreed to it.

Asia Society NY - What Does It Mean to Make Art in the South Asian Diaspora?

 Source: Hyperallergic

 

What Does It Mean to Make Art in the South Asian Diaspora?

This summer exhibition at the Asia Society in New York explores artists of the South Asian diaspora and the ideas and issues that unify their work.

Hrag VartanianAugust 4, 2017

 

 

 

Shahzia Sikander’s “Many Faces of Islam” (1993–99), gouache, vegetable color, watercolor,and tea on wasli paper, 24 x 28 in. (61 x 71.1 cm) (commissioned by New York Times Magazine Special Issue: “Imagining the Millennium” by living artists, Sept. 19, 1999 Courtesy of the artist and Sean Kelly, New York)

In the midst of the Lucid Dreams and Distant Visions exhibition at the Asia Society is a small work by Shahzia Sikander titled “Many Faces of Islam” (1993–99). It’s a surprisingly prescient piece that grapples with what would become the more pronounced fault-lines of the 21st century: money, war, religion, terrorism, censorship, and more. Sikander’s small work suggests a continuity rather than a break with history, even if her work effortlessly blends traditional Mughal miniature technique with the language of graphic novels, history with pop culture, the New York art world’s infographic sensibilities of the 1990s with historic struggles, and, of course, the politics of its time.

This work by Sikander is a masterpiece of American art, but in many ways it perfectly encapsulates the complexity of contemporary art being produced by artists of the South Asian diaspora — it contains multitudes. Most American curators and art institutions have always had trouble dealing with transnational and complex identities, often relegating them to a supporting role in the narratives surrounding the European colonization of Turtle Island. It seems like a problem that is surmountable but the bigger issue is general art audiences have nneven knowledge about different geographical and cultural contexts. This phenomenon disadvantages art that doesn’t adhere to dominant identities, and it leads to the dismissal of some art as “derivative.”

The example of Sikander is also notable for the way reviews often emphasize her illumination training in Pakistan (National College of Arts Lahore) but not her art school training in the US (Rhode Island School of Design). Why? That question is one of many that this show raised for me, and the answer is why an exhibition like this is important.

Khalil Chishtee’s “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake II” (2017) and Anila Quayyum Agha’s “Crossing Boundaries”
(2015) is seen through the doors. (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

The short summer exhibition at the Asia Society makes the case for a South Asian perspective born from the life experience of a diaspora that spans the globe. Here, all the artists are conversant with many idioms and vocabularies. This is an intergenerational affair and that helps us see the continuity and disruptions at work. There’s a strong presence of South Asian Canadians in the mix, specially in the related conference (Queens Museum, June 30–July 2), which makes sense since the divisions in North American diasporas never stop at the border. Art by South Asian Canadian artists is also often supported by government funding in a way it never is in the US because of a larger policy of multiculturalism.

The bigger question for me is why contemporary art by South Asian diaspora is often overlooked in much of contemporary art discourse, even as the conversation has expanded to embrace black, Asian American, and other perspectives more readily (though certainly not completely). From my experience, the conversation around South Asian art in Canada is more developed, and the same is true in the UK, where South Asians were often allied with other minority populations and a larger population often means more representation. In the US, South Asians account for just over 1% of the population, but in New York that number is closer to 4%. Yet those numbers haven’t lead to the inclusion of artists of South Asian descent in exhibitions like Greater New York, the Whitney Biennial, and other surveys. Writing earlier this year, Naeem Mohaiemen pointed out that there were “no South Asian American artists in the 2004, 2006, 2008, 2012, and 2014 Whitney Biennials, and only between one and three artists of South Asian origin in the last four PS1 Greater New York shows.” The lack of inclusion of South Asian artists in the US art world is rather distressing.

Ruby Chisti’s “The Present is a Ruin Without the People” (2016) on the left, and Jaret Vareda’s “Emperor of No Country” (2016) on the right. (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

 

 

Lucid Dreams and Distant Visions: South Asian Art in the Diaspora - Asia Society New York

Exhibition of South Asian Diaspora - June 27-Aug 6 at Asia Society. Strong presence of Pakistani artists. Shahzia Sikandar, Ruby Chishtee, Anila Qayyum Ahga, Khalil Chishtee

Enjoy!





Source: Asia Society

Khalil Chishtee. Study for History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake II, 2017

Jaret Vadera, Emperor of No Country, 2016

Mequitta Ahuja. Performing Painting: A Real Allegory of Her Studio, 2015

Ruby Chishti. The Present is a Ruin Without the People, 2016

Allan deSouza. Rumpty-Tumpty Series #5, 1997/2017                

                                           

 

Lucid Dreams and Distant Visions: South Asian Art in the Diaspora, organized by Asia Society Museum with the support of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, considers the work of nineteen contemporary artists from the South Asian diaspora who explore notions of home and issues relating to migration, gender, race, and memory across mediums and aesthetics. These artists represent a microcosm of the American experience and their respective practices across four decades have collectively made a significant impact on the development of contemporary art in the United States.
Featured artists: Jaishri Abichandani, Anila Quayyum Agha, Mequitta Ahuja, Rina Banerjee, Khalil Chishtee, Ruby Chishti, Allan deSouza, Chitra Ganesh, Mariam Ghani, Vandana Jain, Gautam Kansara, Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, Naeem Mohaiemen, Kanishka Raja, Tenzing Rigdol, Shahzia Sikander, Jaret Vadera, Palden Weinreb, and Zarina.

 

Abdullah Syed in Australia

 

Fairfield gallery hosts exhibition from Pakistani-born artist

Source: Daily Telegraph
Winsome Walker, Fairfield Advance

August 3, 2016 12:42pm

Pakistani-born artist Abdullah M.I. Syed’s first solo art exhibition in Sydney is a very personal one. Substitute: The Untold Narrative of a Mother and Son, explores the relationships between his mother and her four migrant children.

Abdullah M.I. Syed and his work The Portrait of Azra. Picture: Mim Stirling 

The creative process included a trip to Pakistan, where Syed sourced objects and clues from his past.
He also developed a community outreach program in Sydney — which expanded to wider Australia, Pakistan and the US — that invited men to share their memories of their mothers.

Syed said his family’s response to the exhibition had been“overwhelmingly encouraging”.
“My mother is delighted to see the catalogue and images and responded that finally part of her story has been told,” he said.

The artist said he was excited to see his exhibition travel to the Canvas Gallery in Karachi, Pakistan next year.

“That is when my parents will view the works—I cannot wait.”

The exhibition closes at the Fairfield City Museum and Gallery on August 6

Imran Qureshi in Bradford

 

World-renowned street artist to brighten up Bradford parks in commemoration of the First World War

• Source: The Bradford Review
• 2nd August 2016
• Haigh Simpson

 

Acclaimed international artist Imran Qureshi is producing artwork to commemorate the First World War in two of the busiest areas in Bradford, City Park and Lister Park’s Mughal Gardens.

Qureshi is trained in the skill of miniature painting and has pushed the boundaries of this tradition by creating a garden within a garden. Referring to the Mughal Gardens, Qureshi explains that they are a.. “garden within a garden and my work is a garden within that garden – it’s a bit like Russian Dolls, with the gardens fitting inside each other.”

In Lister Park he has used the geometric pattern of the paving slabs as a basis to start his work and then changed the symmetry of the garden to represent a different narrative of the various cultures in Bradford. Using black to represent the bomb blasts of WWI Qureshi added finely-painted flowers emerging from the cracks to symbolise regrowth. The subtle introduction of red paint to the Mughal Water Garden artwork was incorporated into the design. Qureshi says this was influenced by the recent tragic murder of Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox and echoes the terrorist bombings in his home town of Lahore, and the Boston bombings.

In City Park Qureshi worked within the confines of a circle and used pale blues and whites to create another water garden to link with the popular Mirror Pool and the Mughal Water Garden. His trademark foliage in the style of miniature painting has graced many cities including New York, Sydney and Toronto and Bradford is honoured to be one of this number.

Garden Within A Garden has also enabled seven local artists to respond to Imran’s work and the World War 1 centenary, creating new works in multiple media and working with local school and community groups.

Dipak Mistry captures Bradford’s ‘hidden’ memories of WW1 in his photographic series. Christella Litras and Rob Green’s musical and vocal compositions present heartfelt echoes of the loss incurred in conflict. Qashif Mahmud’s wood carvings incorporate woods from around the world, united in one sculpture as a symbol of unity. Zareena Bano, Razwan Ul Haq and Musarat Rahman worked closely with Bradford groups to create nine banner designs which can now be seen in Lister Park.  
All the local artists’ works plus an informative display on Imran Qureshi will be on show in Cartwright Hall until 30 September. Imran Qureshi was commissioned by 14-18 Now, in collaboration with Bradford Museums And Galleries and Yorkshire Festival.

Khadim Ali exhibiting in Australia

Refugee art: a way to face up to ugly truths – and possibly change minds

30 July, 2016

Source: Guardian 

Exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne seek to humanise asylum seekers, so they are not viewed exclusively ‘through the lens of their past suffering’

Khadim Ali remembers the day he started to receive death threats. Anonymous callers would ring the young artist in his hometown of Quetta, Pakistan. “You are the infidel Shia,” they said. “You are the infidel artist.”

“It was then I decided to leave Pakistan and find a safer place for myself,” says Ali. “Because of my ethnicity I was a constant target.”

In 2009 Ali – who has been collected by the likes of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Guggenheim – moved to Australia permanently on a distinguished talent visa. His mother and father, exiled Hazaras whose own parents fled bloody persecution in Afghanistan in the 1890s, joined him as refugees in 2012. Their house in Quetta old town had been bombed in a car suicide attack that left them seriously injured, their home destroyed, and 14 dead.

“I feel like we have a new life, a better and peaceful life here,” says Ali, 38. “My parents are not concerned about me leaving home in the morning.”

Untitled from the Transitions-Evacuation series (2014) by Khadim Ali, who was branded as an ‘infidel artist’ in his hometown in Pakistan

 

 

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Hong Kong retrospective for Shahzia Sikander, subverter of art’s conventions

 

The US-based Pakistani artist, who likes to give classic art forms a contemporary twist, is the focus of an Asia Society exhibition focusing on her progression as a painter

PUBLISHED : Monday, 21 March, 2016, 8:01pm

UPDATED : Monday, 21 March, 2016, 8:55pm

Comments:  

Shahzia Sikander, pictured here, created the film Parallax (also pictured). Photo: courtesy of Shahzia Sikander

Enid Tsui

 

The Asia Society in Hong Kong is staging a major retrospective of the art of Shahzia Sikander, one of the most versatile visual artists working today and recipient of the society’s award for significant contribution to contemporary art last year.

Sikander, who is Pakistani but based in the United States, first came to Hong Kong in 2009, when Para Site showed a selection of her videos. This exhibition is far broader, and focuses on her progression as a painter.

A still from Parallax (2013).

Sikander’s practice has always been grounded in drawing, and that is obvious even in the large animation called Parallax. The rich, animated imageries that she created for the 2013 Sharjah Biennial were scanned from small drawings that recall her training in Indo-Persian miniature painting.

 

Her work is often both a tribute to that classic art form and a challenge to its conventions. One of the earliest works on show in Hong Kong is The Scroll, from 1989-91. As the title suggests, this work is a long, horizontal scroll, which already departs from the usual diminutive format of miniatures.

She also abandoned the form’s classical heroic subject matter and opted to depict the life of a contemporary Pakistan household, based on Sikander’s own upbringing.

 

In each room, members of the extended family can be seen doing perfectly normal things, like packing to go on holiday or checking the contents of the refrigerator. The fine, detailed outlines, vivid colours and multiple vantage points chime with tradition; a red fence behind the house – a repeated motif in her work – represents a continuing narrative with links to history.

 

The Scroll, (1989-91).

History flows strongly throughout her work. It is in the brown tint of the paper used for The Scroll, stained as it is with tea, a commodity inseparable from British colonial power; in the figure of The Company Man who shows up repeatedly in her work, a pot-bellied employee of the East India Company who helped build an empire; in the Hindu icons she appropriates, images that would have been radical when she was growing up under the military dictatorship of President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who was intent on Islamising Pakistan.

 

At the same time, a counter narrative provided by Sikander’s personal history often challenges the generality of the big historic backdrops. The artist grew up a Muslim, attended a Catholic school, and was fortunate to come from a liberal, well-educated household that believed in empowering its women despite General Zia’s introduction of new ways to oppress women.

 

“In public, the whole country was being homogenised at a time when a lot of different people had just moved to Pakistan after Partition [in 1947, when Pakistan and India were created with British India’s independence]. For example, religion was being institutionalised. But in private, it was very different,” she says.

 

She also found when she moved to theUS in the 1990s that she wasn’t fitting into easy categories either. “I decided the experience of the diaspora wasn’t for me. It was my choice to move there. I am comfortable in my skin. It’s only a slight dislocation,” she says.

A Slight and Pleasing Dislocation (1993).

 

And so she painted A Slight and Pleasing Dislocation (1993), an abstract figure of a woman floating through a dark space that bears little resemblance to earlier works. That a Pakistani would use the two words – pleasing and dislocation – together is pointed, given the deep scars left behind by Partition.

 

“My grandparents made a lot of sacrifices because of Partition and I grew up listening to them talking about it and I respect that,” the artist says. “Personally, Partition has also meant that I couldn’t go to India to study the miniatures there, and it’s been very difficult for me. Segregation also heightened the sense of the other.”

 

The one good thing about what one of the faux propaganda posters in the show describes as “a spontaneous response to a difficult situation” is that Muslims like herself can grow up as first-class citizens, she adds.

 

That figure in the 1993 work, partly inspired by her exposure to graffiti artists and wall paintings in America, keeps surfacing in subsequent works.

Like the Company Man, it is just one of a number of memorable symbols she employs. Another one is the gopi’s hair – the topknot worn by a female follower of the Hindu deity Krishna. In her paintings and in animations, the gopi’s hair has a life of its own, often flying in flocks, like crows, giving new associations to yet another traditional icon

 

A still from The Last Post (2010).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She has observed that Hong Kong is struggling to define its relationship with its colonial history. “It is inevitable that we will always be casting for a relationship with the colonisers. But post-colonialism is like the nature of my work. Fluidity is part of it,” she says.

 

A section of her work is also being shown at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, an apt setting for her contemplation of empire, trade and the fluidity of identities.

 

Shahzia Sikander: Apparatus of Power, Chantal Miller Gallery, Asia Society Hong Kong Centre, 9 Justice Drive, Admiralty, Tue-Sun, 11am-6pm and 11am-8pm during Art Basel Hong Kong (Mar 22-26). Ends July 9