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This is an archive article published on January 20, 2010
Painting on the Edge
Itsa bit like visiting Pans Labyrinth at the Devi Art Foundation in Gurgaon. As you lose yourself in corridors created by partitions,you discover nooks and crannies displaying works that challenge your notion of what art is.
Written by Georgina Maddox
January 20, 2010 01:12 AM IST
4 min read
4 min read
Itsa bit like visiting Pans Labyrinth at the Devi Art Foundation in Gurgaon. As you lose yourself in corridors created by partitions,you discover nooks and crannies displaying works that challenge your notion of what art is. Each encounter is designed to shake and bewilder you.
Take,for example,27-year-old Eshan-ul-Haqs installation,Life is Elsewhere,an assemblage that resembles a construction site. The pristine space of the gallery is transformed by the presence of sandbags covered with Urdu characters,a mound of sand is placed on a wooden dais,a television wrapped in plastic is suspended from a wooden tripod and a general air of desolateness lingers around the space. I wanted to bring the idea of a construction site into the gallery since it would acquire a different meaning, says Haq. Is it a take on the current state of Pakistan? Haq does not give such a simplistic reading of his work. In fact,the entire show is an attempt at twisting the idea of a single exhibition representing an identity as vast and diverse as Pakistani art. The show,titled Resemble Reassemble,goes beyond the miniature tradition that has been associated with Pakistani artists until a few years ago. Instead,it demonstrates that art from across the border is a healthy mix of miniature art,new media and the European disciplines of realism and portraiture.
Curator Rashid Rana,also an artist of repute,puts things in perspective. This is an exhibition culled from the collection that Anupam Poddar has built over the years with the help of his team at Devi Art. What Ive tried to do is create visual puns between works by placing them next to each other. The show does not allow a central overarching theme. This collection is not a reflection of Pakistani identity, says Rana who consciously decided not to include his own work in the show.
While the exhibition does have the usual big names from Pakistan like Huma Mulji,Bani Abidi,Naiza Khan,Mahbub Shah and Nusra Latif Qureshi,it also creates space for younger artists,mostly students from the Beaconhouse National University in Lahore.
Im always on the lookout for new talent and that is exactly what I found in Pakistan , says Poddar,who made his first trip in 2005.
Poddars taste is clearly experimental. Iqra Tanveer,26,has created a jittering transparent box of water as her tribute to Karachi that she left for Lahore. The work is nostalgic for my hometown,but it also is a larger musing on the illusion created by reflections. One cannot tell where the sky ends and the water begins,the horizon is an illusion. My work strives to evoke this feeling, says Tanveer. Unum Babar,23,whose video of two women in white chadors is symbolically projected on two broken eggshells. It evokes the delicate sense of birds having flown the nest. Naiza Malliks canvas,meanwhile,is humorous yet sensitive she has painted the Power Puff Girls,of Cartoon Network fame,surrounded by several male hands holding guns of various sizes. While one cannot help but laugh at the comic moment,it touches a deeper chord in anyone who has faced state violence.
One could say that Pakistani artists like to experiment. We do not want to be pigeonholed as new media artists or miniaturistswhat we are hoping for is a cross discipline that feels free to take from here and there, says Rana.
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show is on till May 10; At Devi Art Foundation,Plot 39,Sector 44,Gurgaon
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