THE ARTNOW PAPER www.artnowpakistan.com VOL IV 2019 Saleha Arif, National College of Arts Rawalpindi Thesis Display, 2018. Image courtesy the artist Connecting Flights Profile | October 2018 Photo Essay | November 2018 In Focus | January 2019 Profile | January 2019 Regional modernist at heart: Disrupting Navigation of an Nayyer Ali Dada emotional minefield UBERMENSCH nature’s course Through this navigation of an emotional On the Pakistani artscape, Rana Rashid Dada has always been a modernist at The relationship Karachi shares with its edge: minefield, one also must focus on the rocketed like nothing less than a super- heart, though his style has evolved from both the good and the bad... the escape it business of the day… man. I listen to Rana’s impassioned ideas that to a regional modernist... offers and their indifference to it all... the Degree Show... about art-making and art education... Pages 12-13 Page 26 Pages 30-31 Pages 6-8 2019 ARTNOW PAKISTAN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PUBLICATION DESIGN BY JOVITA ALVARES Editorial Note Editorial Note Fawzia Naqvi Quddus Mirza Editor in Chief Editor Welcome to another edition of the ArtNow Art Newspaper, At the degree show of an art institute, it is realised that we are bringing to our readers selected articles from the online mag- heir to human legacy, in art, literature, science, technology azine in print form. Our theme for this edition is “Thesis Dis- and other fields of knowledge and culture. Everything created, plays”, as some very exciting Degree Shows have taken place over the past two months at conceived and constructed by humankind is our past and part of our heritage. We draw various art institutions, including Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture (IVSAA), references, seek inspirations, and follow examples beyond the boundaries of land or National College of Arts (NCA), Beaconhouse National University (BNU) – School confines of period. of Visual Arts and Design (M.A Program), Karachi School of Arts (KSA) and Karachi This diversity, and richness is visible in works at several degree shows in the University Visual Arts Department. This is always an important time of the year, when country. Often dealing with personal problems, physical issues, social concerns, mat- fresh graduates enter the competitive arena of the art world, bringing new ideas and ters of cultural identity, the creations of graduating students usually offer different and perspectives that have the potential to carve out and define the concepts and ideals of diverse points of views. These also reflect our surroundings, and changes occurred due to the future art milieu. new modes of communication. Here tradition is explored, and examined, may that be of Each of the schools brought forth their own distinct identity with certain works Mughal miniature painting, European art history, or popular urban culture. that were unique. ArtNow fully supports these initiatives. Our essays examine a closer The craft of making, exploration of materials, experiments with technique are look at some of these works and discusses in depth the works emerging from current normally evident in works presented at degree shows. If one frequents these displays, thesis shows. Beyond the thesis show, we also engage in conversations with artists name- one finds pieces that remind of violence in our environment, pattern of political power, ly, Nusra Latif, Rashid Rana, Faiza Butt, Adeel Uz Zafar and Arshad Farooqui. You will consumer culture’s hold on private dreams and desires, memory of things lost, body as a also be pleased to read the exciting retrospectives of Anwar Jalal Shemza and Ustaad vehicle of emotive ideas, landscape being a view of outside and a map of fear. A number Allah Baksh. Our Guest Editor for this edition is the dynamic Amna Naqvi of the AAN of these artworks, executed in multiple media, revert to personal histories: of families, Foundation, an avid art collector, philanthropist and publisher running the AAN Gand- people, places; observations weaved into visuals, which can be connected and associated hara Art-Space in Karachi and Hong Kong. Welcome to the pages of the Art Paper. with everyone. A realisation both, for the makers of art and its audience; that visual art is not like a language – but is a language, with its distinct grammar, code and meaning. 2 3 Editorial | December 2018 Amna Naqvi Guest Editor museum shows and he will now be focusing on art in the future, while those in Venice in the past? As based films and has three in production currently. is increasingly obvious with Rana’s artwork, notions There are two questions to be asked thus. of ways of seeing, time and space all collide in his What of the ‘object’ and the ‘museum’? If the ques- practice. A tion all boils down to experience, do we need both Then there are artists such as Bani Abidi or any to employ for ‘art making’ or ‘exhibition mak- and Basir Mehmood who have chosen film as their ing’? primary modes of storytelling, while Adeel Uz Zafar Closer to home, one can research and and Abdullah Syed have experimented with sound observe artists such as Shahzia Sikander, Imran installations. Khadim Ali chose to realise monumen- Qureshi and Aisha Khalid who have been working tal murals for the ‘National Exhibition’ at the Muse- with film and installation since the late’ 90s which I um of Contemporary Art, Sydney. While Fazal Rizvi have been fortunate enough to witness. is experimenting with both sound as well as the Shahzia Sikander created a number of films notions of using the landscape or in this case sea- and installations including her video installation scape as a mode for story telling for his work ‘Rooms titled ‘SpiNN’ in 2003 and ‘Unseen’ at Doris Duke Afloat’ rather than the confines of a ‘walls/museum’. Foundation’s Shangri-La in Hawaii in 2012. Her As for artists such as Yaminay Chaudhri, Shahana magnum opus though is ‘Parallax’ which is a seven- Rajani and Zahra Malkani film and technology and ty-two feet, three channel-single image animation are the central focus of their practice. composed of hundreds of hand painting drawings, Publishing projects is another area where art which is a classically immersive film experience and is overlapping with artistic practice. This is not only was created for the Sharjah Biennial in 2013 and has in the form of artist books such as ‘The Straight Path’ been shown at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, by Imran Qureshi in 2009 but independent publish- MAXXI Museum Rome amongst others. ing projects such as Scroll, which was a collaboration Aisha Khalid’s video installation titled between the AAN Foundation and the curator Aziz ‘Conversation’ was created while at Residency at the Sohail in 2015 and is now being exhibited in various Rijksakademie, Amsterdam in 2001, while Imran museums with Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Qureshi’s installations at the Singapore Biennial, in Capetown South Africa as its first stop in 2017. 2006 and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013 The lines between education, publishing, are a testament to an immersive experience. research, film, architecture, technology, design and These artists though, continue to create art will be so porous that these will inhabit each object based art but practice their engagement and other’s spaces even further and artists who have experimentation with film and in-situ installations developed interdisciplinary skills will be more adept with zeal. It is interesting to note, that the artists at inhabiting any or all of these worlds in the future, who were trained at the miniature painting depart- be it with creating ‘objects’ or immersive experienc- ment of the National College of Arts were willing to es. As for ‘the museum’ and if it is to remain relevant experiment with other mediums very early in their then in computer-game speak, it will also have to be art practice. The reason could be that to break the an amorphous being which will have to manifest in ‘jadwal’ or the border in the training for miniature many avatars, forms and spaces. painting is such an act of rebellion, that to break further boundaries with any medium as well as subject was that much easier. Rashid Rana, on the other hand, used ‘real time’ to create his mul- timedia installations. At his collateral exhibition at the Venice Biennial in 2015, ‘My East Is Your West’ he manipulated the viewer in real time in Venice with his work titled ‘I do not always feel immaterial’ and it was a very disorienting artwork to experience mna Naqvi is the Founder and Director of the AAN for the viewers. I recall Foundation and AAN Gandhara Art Space as well constantly moving in as the owner of the twice champion Pakistan Super League cricket team, Islamabad United. Together with and out of the first room her husband, they are both leaders in the fields of to figure it out. Moving finance, art and sport. They also own the AAN Collec- tion, which is believed to be the largest and the most on, the viewers in Lahore acclaimed collection of Pakistani modern and con- and Venice were con- temporary art. The Collection has been exhibited and fronted with each other published extensively in over fifty global institutions. Her Art Space has set standards in exhibition mak- in real time and un- ing by introducing museum quality, longer duration knowingly morphed into exhibitions among private institutions and museums in the country, as well as, internationally. AAN Gand- each other’s audience in hara has been a leader in exhibiting new media and the second installation seminal exhibitions, which include film, technology titled ‘The Viewing, The and in-situ installations, public programming and art publication since its inception.