While Indian contemporary art has been on the international stage for a while now, the next big thing may well be Pakistani artists. These artists have been working steadfastly in their home country through war, terror attacks and the slow disintegration of civil society, and finally the international art world is becoming aware of their work.
Media may tend to dwell on the bad news, on the unraveling of Pakistani society, but the art tends to give a more nuanced picture of Pakistan’s rich culture and history, its complex and diverse people. This year Asia Society launched the major exhibit “Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan” which received rave reviews. The show can be seen in New York till January 2010 and is the first major U.S. museum survey of contemporary art from Pakistan. It is curated by noted art scholar Salima Hashmi and spotlights the work of the late artist Zahoor ul Akhlaq as well as Hamra Abbas, Bani Abidi, Faiza Butt, Ayaz Jokhio, Naiza Khan, Huma Mulji, Asma Mundrawala, Imran Qureshi, Rashid Rana, Anwar Saeed, and Adeela Suleman.
Through canvas and paint, these artists address many issues, make political commentary and create beautiful contemporary art using techniques of the past in a modern idiom. There is boldness, beauty, humor – and even optimism in their work.
“Responding to and working from their context makes them particularly interesting for the world right now, because people are mislead by the media which depicts us as a violent, muzzled, humorless society,” says Salima Hashmi, who is Dean of the School of Visual Arts at the Beaconhouse National University.
Hashmi, who is the daughter of the renowned poet, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, adds: “The truth lies elsewhere….anyone who has danced to the sound of the drums at a Sufi Shrine on a Thursday, or rocked to the sound of music at one of the Colleges in Karachi or Lahore, or gone to art school and vehemently debated issues in the studio, knows that this is a society of deep contradictions, full of energy and possibilities… that is what informs Pakistani contemporary art.”
(Detailed article on Pakistani artists to follow shortly)
