CONTEMPORARY PAKISTANI ART

Huma Mulji

Arabian Delight (and details)

2008

“Pakistani born Huma Mulji’s works explore ideas of displacement. Her preoccupation with cultural difference takes her away from India and Pakistan toward the Middle East and other landscapes. This juncture between tradition and the relentless modern thrust across India and Pakistan is where Mulji occupies herself with deliberate humour. Arabian Delight, a taxidermied camel forced into a battered suitcase, addresses ideas of the relocation of cultures. The rather crazed manner in which the collapsed camel is impossibly forced into this suitcase, legs thrown in disarray, is a humorous comment on the perceived ‘Arabisation’ of Pakistan as another Muslim state.”

Manisha Jiani

Respected Sir

Nadia Khawaja

Sea for Yourself.

Inkjet on Hahnemüle photo rag

2012

Basir Mahmood

A Message to the Sea (Video Still)

2012.

"(The United Nations) is inviting Pakistani young people to share their vision of peace through drawings, paintings and photography. This is a great opportunity for Pakistani youth to share their messages of peace with the rest of the world through visual arts.

Bani Abidi

The Address

C-print

2007

(Image courtesy of Art Asia Pacific/Bani Abidi) 

Mohammad Ali Taipur

Untitled (Alif)

2012

Ink on paper

London based gallery, Green Cardamom, will be showing his work from 29 June to 27 July.

Gandhara Art Gallery's latest show "Let's Take It Outside" will be featuring works from Ahsan Jamal, Imrana Tanveer, Noor Ali Chagani and Nashmia Haroon. The show will be up until July 5th. 

The press release is as follows:

"Using the popular phrase' Let's Take It Outside' which commonly translates to taking the disagreement or the fight elsewhere, this exhibition plays on the notion of moving the narrative or the dialogue away from its present condition. Thus, moving it away from the corridors of power and drawing rooms, to a place where it is more relevant and unhindered. It challenges the notion of exclusivity and seeks to provide a voice to those whose opinions are have historically been tolerated but ignored like a mild irritant. The question to put forward would be, who might those be. The public at large. 

The work of all four artists, Ahsan Jamal's quiet portraits and still landscapes, Imrana Tanveer's tongue in check commentary on the realm of power, Noor Ali Chagani's exposed brickwork and Nashmia Haroon's scaffolding all call for pushing the narrative to its rightful place. Outside."

A group of artists installed a child's portrait facing up in the heavily bombed Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa region of Pakistan, where drone attacks regularly occur. 

One of the most powerful art installations we've seen in a long time.

Farida Batool

SONGS OF LOVE 5, 6, 7 & 8

2009

Multi-media on archival paper

Aisha Khalid

‘Pattern to Follow’

2009 

"In an essay titled “The ‘Expanded Field’ of Contemporary Miniature” (Nafas Art Magazine, 2010), Nasar identifies the leading figures in contemporary miniature art as Imran Qureshi, Shahzia Sikander, Nusra Latif Qureshi and Aisha Khalid, all graduates of the Miniature Painting Department of NCA. Nasar says it is thanks to these artists, who circulate in international biennales, museums and other institutions worldwide that miniature art has become an “ism” for the new generation.

In an interview with the Telegraph India, Nasar says that “these artists have taken the South Asian tradition of miniature to new heights, and then moved beyond the page to invent a new visual language, rooted in tradition but of the here and now.”

Art critic and curator Dr Virginia Whiles, Associate Lecturer at Chelsea College of Art, University of the Arts, London, and author of a seminal book about miniature art from Pakistan, said that “the very tradition of miniature painting, particularly the Mughal style which is promoted as Pakistan’s cultural heritage, has become the inspiration for some of the most radical contemporary art work in Pakistan today.”"

(Full Article can be read on ArtRadarJournal.com)

All Brooklyn based folks should check out Smack Mellon's group show "In Plain Sight" which will be featuring Bani Abidi's work. The show is curated by Sarah Lookofsky.

More details can be found here.

Interesting piece on Art Now Pakistan on Arif Mahmood's photography of exhibitions. 

"Art and its space have always amused me. I am obsessed about people and their environment. The gallery or the art space is a good hunting ground for images. A photographer is also a hidden collector. To collect is to own and to own is to dream. I don’t know if this makes sense but obsessions are simply layered desires. So the geometry of people and objects with heavy lighting is a pleasure which I indulge in during art talks and exhibitions. The essence is the final image for me."

-Arif Mahmood

(Text via Art Now Pakistan)