TeaThe 11-year religious dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq deeply shaped the art of Pakistan. After the general’s successful coup in 1977, his regime imposed martial law, crushed women’s rights, imposed strict censorship, and imposed harsh restrictions on artistic expression.
Ascent of Man, an abstract painting by Quddus Mirza, is inspired by the controversial trial and hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the democratically elected Prime Minister deposed by a coup. painting, part of an unprecedented exhibition The art and architecture of Pakistan depicts a man sitting on a chair while a headless body floats in the sky. It blends elements of magical realism with allusions to the martyrdom of Hussein ibn Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson in the seventh century, whose death was a major event in the history of Islam that still resonates today.
“Under Zia-ul-Haq, Artists, playwrights and novelists found a way to subvert,” says Mirza, whose works are among the 200 on display at the exhibition, titled Manzar: Art and Architecture from Pakistan, 1940 to Today“It was a turning point – that subversive language changed the art of Pakistan forever.”
Organized by the National Museum of Qatar in Doha, the show highlights the connection between Pakistan’s cultural heritage and contemporary practices, while linking it to wider global artistic and architectural movements. Manzar is an Arabic and Urdu word meaning “scene”, “scene” or “perspective” – a reference used to underline the diversity of the exhibition. The exhibition is organized by Upcoming Art Mill Museum (AMM)An exhibition of modern and contemporary art is set to open in Doha “in a few years”.
Art coinciding with the partition of India in 1947, such as works by prominent painters Ustad Allah Baksh And Abdur Rehman ChughtaiFor the neo-miniatures of Shahzia Sikandar And Imran QureshiCalligraphy by choice of modernism Sadequainand feminist art Salima HashmiThe exhibition displays artworks spanning eight decades.
Mirza says that the era of General Zia-ul-Haq ultimately established the neo-miniature and Karachi pop movements. He says the exhibition is unique in that it includes pre-1947 works as well as works from neighboring India and pre-1971 Bangladesh. Curators Caroline Hancock, Aurelien Lemonnier and Zarmeen Shah have used examples from political posters, magazines, film advertisements and popular culture. To bring context to the exhibition, and also to show “architecture and art together”.
Mirza is critical of the term “Pakistani art”, as he believes that the roots of the region’s artistic heritage are “far deeper and more inclusive” than those dug in the ground in 1947, when Pakistan was created. “In Pakistan we are always trying to find our identity,” says the artist. “For some it’s being South Asian, for others it’s being Muslim, which means we’re really struggling with our identity. I am not clear. There is a confusion and a question. But this has led to a positive increase in the diversity of Pakistan’s art. It’s a great mix.”
The exhibition highlights artistic movements including the Mughal-inspired miniature tradition, modernist innovations and contemporary experiments in neo-miniature art. Some of the works displayed had never been borrowed before or seen outside Pakistan. Shah, Karachi’s co-curator, says the show was intended to stay away from “nationalist overtones”. She adds: “There has been no exhibition of this scope and scale – in Pakistan or outside. Exhibitions like Manzar destabilize the hegemony of narrow, linear, Western art-historical approaches and narratives and offer alternative ways of seeing.
One feminist voice included in the show is Naija Khan, who in 2019 ever before Artists representing Pakistan at the Venice Biennale. “This is an original exhibition, ambitious in scope and scale,” says Khan. He said the show instilled a “sense of pride”.
“This is the first major exhibition of Pakistan’s art and architecture in the region. Doha has a large community of South Asian expatriates who live and work there, creating another web of context and relationships for the community.
Khan completed his BA in Fine Arts from Oxford in 1990. She then moved to Karachi and strengthened its connection with the sea and the landmass of Africa and beyond. She is fascinated by the idea of ”space mapping”, and are concerned with environmental justice and land exploitation. Sticky Rice and Other Stories is a film installation in Manzar that traces the mental map of the region around Karachi, from the colonial textile trade to containerized cargo shipping.
Hundreds of Birds Killed – Khan’s artwork in Venice – is a combination of brass maps and soundscapes of weather, which has its roots in a 1939 archival weather report in colonial India, which Khan found in the ruins of an observatory on the island of Manora in the south Was found. Of Karachi. “I was mesmerized by the visual array of weather data in the pages of this report,” she says. “It was detailed, specific and engineered, and revealed the dichotomy between imperial mapping and everyday reality. Since this project, I’ve been thinking more about records of weather history and what they tell us. In the early 19th century, attempts to predict the monsoon in India were abandoned [colonial interests],
The brass knuckles used in the artwork are from toys found in the old markets of Karachi. There are 76 cast-brass tiles that form maps of cities affected by the storm. Khan says that the discriminatory politics of General Zia-ul-Haq led to the formation of the Women’s Action Forum (WAF) in 1981.
One of Khan’s favorite works in the exhibition is Zubaida Aga’s “playful” 1956 oil-on-canvas Karachi by Night, created in the same year as the Constitution of Pakistan, under which the country became an Islamic republic. “Artists in Pakistan have pushed back against many political and social forms of censorship,” says Khan. “Art has been a resistance and a critique, a mirror of truth to the social order, and it has been one of the strengths of the art produced in Pakistan.”
The exhibition also showcases the works of architects such as Yasmin Lari and Nayyar Ali Dada, exploring how they reflect Pakistan’s emerging identity. It emphasizes sustainable design, responding to climate challenges and the transformative role of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, which was initiated in 1980 in Lahore, celebrating the community-centred design of Lari and projects such as Restoration of Shigar Fort,
The museum courtyard houses three examples of flood-relief bamboo shelters, designed by Lari and the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan. There is also a focus on Zahoor ul Akhlaq, who – despite being widely recognized as one of the most influential Pakistani artists – has remained relatively under-researched until recently. In an essay for the museum catalogue, Mirza highlighted Akhlaq as an important figure who “linked the art of the present with the art of the past” by combining historical practices such as Mughal miniature painting and Islamic geometry with postmodern sensibilities. .
Mirza said he found his artistic language after reading Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, which he found on a friend’s bookshelf in 1984. “I read it,” he says, “and then I thought, ‘Oh my God, what they did through literature, why can’t I do through my work?'”
Mirza graduated from the National College of Arts, Lahore in 1986 before completing a master’s degree in painting from the Royal College of Art, London in 1991. He is particularly inspired by children’s paintings. In Mirza’s opinion, the highlight of the show is the bronze sculpture by Huma Bhabha orientalismA powerful and evocative work featuring an ambiguous figure sitting on a chair, a mixture of human, alien and totemic features.
“The sculpture has somehow become distorted, decayed and dehumanized, so everyone can read it through their own lens,” says Mirza. But for me it is a kind of rotten or rotten authority like Zia-ul-Haq.”