Criticism

Volume 55 | Issue 2 Article 9

2013 Action as Modernist Code Naveeda Kahan Johns Hopkins University

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Recommended Citation Kahan, Naveeda (2013) "Action as Modernist Code," Criticism: Vol. 55: Iss. 2, Article 9. Available at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/criticism/vol55/iss2/9 Action as In the late 1990s, I was in Lahore, conducting doctoral research and Modernist Code befriending the artists and schol- Naveeda Khan ars associated with the National College of Arts (NCA). Of these, Modernism and the Art of Muslim Rashid Rana, at that time a teacher South Asia by Iftikhar Dadi. at the NCA and very much a rising Chapel Hill: University of North artist, was my favorite for the easy Carolina Press, 2010. Pp. 312. affection he showed me, a new- $41.95 cloth. comer to Lahore. Later when he became famous and I started see- ing his artwork splashily displayed, I was proud. At the same time, I wondered whether his rise in the international markets did not co- incide a little too neatly with the downward trajectory of the nation of his birth, Pakistan, into political chaos in the 2000s, as if it amused art connoisseurs that a country so bungling in statecraft should pro- duce such fine art. I wondered whether Rashid did not pander a bit to the widespread represen- tation of Pakistan as an extrem- ist religious stronghold, if only to shock, for instance with his image of the veiled woman who dissolved into thousands of images of naked, strutting playgirls upon closer look. Banish such cynical thoughts, urges Iftikhar Dadi in his cogently written and lushly illustrated 2010 book Modernism and the Art of Mus- lim South Asia. Dadi, an art historian at Cornell University and a re- spected artist in his own right, con- tends that if we are to have a proper appreciation and a pleasurable en- counter with some of the most seri- ous art entering the world’s scene,

Criticism Spring 2013, Vol. 55, No. 2, pp. 351–356. ISSN 0011-1589. 351 © 2013 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201-1309 352 NAVEEDA khan we must step away from such easy lay claims upon this tradition while criticism and grapple with the dif- critically perceiving and represent- ficulties of the emergence of mod- ing the structures of mediation, and ernism as a movement within the one of securing the artist as an in- art of what he calls “Muslim South dependent subject as opposed to a Asia.” As an aside, “Muslim South master plier of the tradition. Besides Asia” is a formulation worth un- such questions of the positioning of packing. Presumably, Dadi uses it the artistic self and its sovereignty, to bring colonial India and pre-in- there is the further conundrum of dependence Bangladesh within the the artist’s target audience—that is, purview of artistic inheritance and whether it is the nation, the people, production in Pakistan, without or an emergent cosmopolitanism. having to delve too much into the Disclaiming any attempts at histories of art in those two nations. representativeness, Dadi takes up I understand this formulation as a handful of artists—Abdur Rah- allowing art in Pakistan to be man Chughtai, Zainul Abedin, Zu- grounded in its own terms and not beida Agha, Shakir Ali, Sadequain, in a derivative or defensive posture Rasheed Araeen, Naiza Khan and to the nations in the region with those around them—giving them which it has shared and conflicted four meaty chapters in more or histories. It is a bold and perhaps less chronological order to work founding move on Dadi’s part to through the range of possibilities, suggest that in attending to the art limitations, contradictions, ambiv- that Pakistan feels to be its own, we alences, and transcendences within also attend significantly to the art of the afore-sketched terrain of dilem- the Muslims of South Asia. mas facing the modern Muslim art- That artists of the region have ist. Blending biographical sketches, had to contend with postcolonial vignettes that illuminate a particu- anxieties about the originality of lar path taken, historical contex- their contribution to modernism, tualization, description of specific and the politics of influence is the milieus, focused attention to formal assumed background to this work. elements within individual works, Dadi presents this dilemma suc- and engagement with wider theo- cinctly in his introduction to the retical and political concerns, Dadi book. The plight of Muslim artists masterfully presents less the pro- is further complicated because they files of artistic subjectivities and stand in a problematic relationship more a series of actions, productive to an aesthetic tradition established and proliferating, converging and as Islamic art by Western scholar- differentiating, that run through ship. The problem is simultane- and constitute the current genera- ously one of determining how to tive code of Pakistani art. on modernism and the art of muslim south asia 353

It is worth taking up each chap- Chughtai Art. Although this sig- ter in turn to consider the astonish- nature style appears to make con- ing variety of actions undertaken scious and nostalgic reference to by each artist. In so doing, I do not an earlier Islamicate and Persian- quite do justice to the capacious- ate period of art and confounds ness of references and careful argu- the Urdu literati of the time, Dadi ments specific to each chapter but argues that formal details within rather trace this lay reader’s pro- Chughtai’s paintings suggest less a ductive pathway through a very re- mimicry of a time past and more a warding book. My focus on action play of elements that give birth to also enables me to make a few final the notion of a singular artistic sub- comments about the specificity of jectivity. In chapter 2, Dadi turns the contribution of Muslim South to Zainul Abedin, Zubeida Agha, Asian art to not only modernism and Shakir Ali to draw out the lin- but modernity more generally. eaments of midcentury modern- Chughtai, the subject of chap- ism. Here, too, actions dominate as ter 1, positions himself to launch the means of establishing modern- a Punjab school of art rivaling the ism within the national art scene. Bengal school predominant in the We hear of Shakir Ali’s work with early twentieth century. While the the National College of Arts, Zai- Punjab school does not ever acquire nul Abedin’s establishment of the the status and reach of its rival, Institute of Fine Arts in East Paki- Chughtai teaches; he paints relent- stan, and Zubeida Agha’s head- lessly, participating in numerous ing of the Rawalpindi Art Gallery exhibitions; he publishes his work alongside their unremitting paint- in Calcutta-based journals, the first ing, travel, and exhibiting and Muslim artist to acquire such pub- Shakir’s further engagement with licity in the emergent print media; literary circles. A uniting theme he organizes exhibitions, the most across the three distinct figures is well known being the 1920 exhibi- a disjuncture within their artistic tion of the Punjab Fine Arts Soci- personas, with Ali immersed in, ety; he illustrates poetry books, the though silent, among the literati, most celebrated of these being the Abedin split between neorealism Muraqqá-i Chughtái, reinventing and more abstract painting styles, the classical genre for the age of me- and Agha as prolific but intensely chanical reproduction in the words private about her painterly influ- of Dadi by even running a press at ences. In chapter 3, Dadi focuses his home at one point; he starts art entirely on the most enigmatic and journals to educate the public on popular of Pakistani artists: Sad- the reception of visual images; and equain. Dadi again provides a cru- he establishes his signature style in cial catalog of actions undertaken 354 NAVEEDA khan by Sadequain in crafting what he terms an antifoundationalism Dadi calls a portrait of the artist as with respect to both Islamic art both superhuman and a tortured and classical modernism, that runs subjectivity. These actions include through all the artists he considers. teaching art in an agricultural col- The concluding chapter follows lege, working in Radio Pakistan, actions into the present through its illustrating Urdu poetry, painting consideration of a range of young, commissioned murals, living and emergent artists. painting abroad for a long spell, es- Let me mention two fur- tablishing a private gallery in Ka- ther noteworthy themes that run rachi, writing and publishing his through Dadi’s analysis before own poetry, illustrating his books turning to my own understand- with his own lithographs, and ing of what a focus on action has turning to popular media, even to provide us. I was struck by the streets and pavements, on which various ways the poet philosopher to present his artwork to a wide Muhammad Iqbal shows up as public. With the move to contem- an important point of reference porary art produced in both Paki- for Dadi, making Dadi’s text a stan and abroad in chapter 4, Dadi consideration of sorts of the enor- concludes his series, as it were, of mity of Iqbal’s influence upon the unceasing actions as a modality Pakistani imagination—in this in- of modernist art among Muslim stance, its visual repertoire. A few South Asians. Taking up Rasheed examples should suffice. Iqbal ap- Araeen and Naiza Khan in turn, pears as an ambivalent endorser of he considers how they respond to Chughtai’s art. In Chughtai’s work, the present moment that engulfs Iqbal finds a contemplative mode them and informs the reception marked by more lassitude than he of their work beyond their indi- sought to project in his own literary vidual intentions and desires not representation of the new Muslim only through close attentiveness to self. Sadequain’s art, on the other embedded structures in their art- hand, better captures the kind of work but also through the creation dynamic, active persona closer to of international journals; wide ex- Iqbal’s own vision, while Rasheed perimentation with new media, Araeen embeds Iqbal’s poetry in his including performance, installa- billboard art, effecting what Dadi tion, printmaking, and photogra- calls an immanent critique of Iqbal. phy; and undertaking billboard Secondly, the consistency with and stenciled art in public sites. which each generation of artists at- In them, Dadi finds the most sus- tempts to put their work alongside tained exchange between political literature and to be involved in lit- critique and art production, what erary circles and debates points to on modernism and the art of muslim south asia 355 the importance of literature as not and reporting systems inform the only cultural production but also social in modernity. And the obli- creative action within Pakistani gation of the social is to “provide history. That the visual seeks to sit new occasions for recognizing the alongside the literary even while value of all the individuals who the visual struggles to be consid- are part of it.”2 ered on its own terms suggests the By describing the work of the mutual attraction of the two media artists Dadi writes about as ac- in Pakistan. It raises the intriguing tions, I wish to draw attention to possibility of using the visual in an three ways in which we might analysis of literature—of even, say, take these artists to be commit- Iqbal—which may yield not only a ted to modernism through their different set of readings and inter- participation in and contribution pretations than the usual but also a to the generative code of moder- considerable expansion of the scope nity. They act—that is, establish of the visual in Pakistani society. schools, operate galleries, publish While a consideration of Iqbal’s journals—so as to produce new place in art history and the interre- occasions for the comparison and lation of art and literature are not evaluation of individual actions. Dadi’s main interests in this book, They seek to be the founders of they may be productively plumbed evaluative criteria, to be able to from it. make and pronounce the value of Let me now turn to my final the visual images produced. And comments on the fecundity of such through the self-reflexive nature artistic actions. In an important of their actions and contempla- rereading of Michel Foucault’s tions, they make visible that value writings, Frances Ferguson sug- is everywhere in society and in gests that the creation of catego- need of commentary and perhaps ries of persons is not the sole focus criticism. My sense is Dadi seeks to of modern organized social life. put into words his instinct that the Rather, this organizing seeks to artists he speaks of are intrinsically set up “a social group as a way of and productively modern and, establishing a relative value for in- therefore, have no need to make dividual actions.”1 In other words, claims of originality within the action dominates subjectivity. field of modernism or Islamic art, Consequently, individual action whatever may be their individual derives its value by comparison subjectivity, the form and content to the actions of others within a of their work, and their reception. group and not from intentions or If that is the case, then Dadi more emotions. Thus, ongoing com- than amply grounds this instinct parisons, evaluative sequences, by a loving, careful catalog of their 356 NAVEEDA khan ceaseless actions that extend into mosques in the urban landscape of Pakistan the present. Rashid Rana’s work to land erosion in the riparian landscapes of Bangladesh. finds a ready home within this fine book.

Notes Naveeda Khan, assistant professor of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, 1. Frances Ferguson, Pornography, the has written Muslim Becoming: Aspira­ Theory: What Utilitarianism Did to tion and Skepticism in Pakistan (Duke Action (Chicago: University of Chicago University Press, 2012) and edited Beyond Press, 2005), xiv. Crisis: Re-evaluating Pakistan (Routledge India, 2010). Her work at present spans 2. Ibid., 23.