TGeneral Zia-ul-Haq's 11-year religious dictatorship deeply shaped Pakistani art. After the general's successful coup in 1977, his regime imposed martial law, trampled on women's rights, implemented strict censorship, and imposed severe restrictions on artistic expression.
The abstract painting “The Rise of Man'' by Quds Mirza was inspired by the controversial trial and hanging of democratically elected Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was overthrown in a coup. part of the picture, groundbreaking exhibition This masterpiece of Pakistani art and architecture depicts a man sitting in a chair while a headless corpse floats into the sky. The work combines elements of magic realism with allusions to the 7th-century martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, whose death was an important episode in Islamic history that is still remembered today. I am.
“Under Zia-ul-Haq, Artists, playwrights and novelists have found ways to subvert it,” says Mirza. His work is among the 200 pieces featured in the exhibition. Manzar: Art and Architecture from Pakistan, 1940s to Today. “It was a turning point. A subversive word changed Pakistani art for the better.”
Organized by the Qatar National Museum in Doha, the exhibition highlights the connections between Pakistan's cultural heritage and contemporary practices, while linking it to broader global art and architecture movements. Manzar means “scene,” “view,” or “point of view” in Arabic and Urdu and is used to emphasize the diversity of an exhibition. The exhibition will be held in the future Art Mill Museum (AMM)a showcase of modern and contemporary art scheduled to open in Doha “in the next few years.”
From art from the time of partition of India in 1947, including works by representative painters. Ustad Allah Baksh and Abdul Rahman Chughtaineo-miniature paintings of Shazia Sikander and Imran Qureshidue to modernism in calligraphy, etc. Sadecaineand feminist art Salima Hashmithe exhibition features 80 years of artwork.
Mirza says the era of General Zia-ul-Haq ultimately led to the establishment of the neo-miniature movement and the Karachi Pop movement. He said the exhibition is unique in that it includes not only works from before 1947, but also works from neighboring India and Bangladesh before 1971. Curators Caroline Hancock, Aurelien Lemonnier, and Zalmeen Shah use examples from political posters, magazines, film advertisements, and popular culture. Bringing context to the exhibition and showing “architecture and art side by side”.
Mirza is critical of the term “Pakistani art.'' Because he believes the roots of the region's artistic heritage are “much deeper and more comprehensive” than the land carved in 1947, when Pakistan was founded. “In Pakistan, we have always tried to find our identity,” says the artist. “For some it's South Asian, for others it's Muslim, and that means we're not really clear about our identity. There's confusion and doubt. But this has had a positive impact on the diversity of Pakistani art. There is a great mix.”
The exhibition explores art movements such as the Mughal-inspired miniature tradition, modernist innovations, and contemporary experiments in neo-miniature art. Some of the works on display have never before been lent or seen outside Pakistan. Co-curator Shah, who is from Karachi, said the exhibition aimed to avoid “nationalist metaphors”. She added: “No exhibition of this scope and scale has ever been held in Pakistan or abroad. Exhibitions like Manzar destabilize the hegemony of narrow, linear Western art historical perspectives and narratives, I will present my perspective.”
The feminist voice included in the show is Naiza Khan, who became a feminist voice in 2019. First time ever An artist representing Pakistan at the Venice Biennale. “This is an original exhibition, ambitious in scope and scale,” Mr Khan said, adding that the exhibition evoked “a sense of pride”.
“This is the first major exhibition of Pakistani art and architecture in the region. Doha has a large South Asian diaspora community that lives and works there, and it brings new It creates a web of contexts and relationships.”
Khan earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Oxford in 1990. He then moved to Karachi and developed a close relationship with the sea and with the land and sea of Africa and other parts of the world. She has been fascinated by the idea of “.mapping space” and is interested in environmental justice and land development. Sticky Rice and Other Stories is Manzar's film installation that traces the mental map of Karachi's surrounding areas, from the colonial textile trade to containerized shipping.
Kahn's work in Venice, “Hundreds of Birds Killed,” combines brass maps and weather soundscapes, and its roots are in colonial India, in the ruins of an observatory on the southern island of Manora. In an archived weather forecast from 1939 discovered by Kahn. of Karachi. “I was fascinated by the visual tables of weather data that spanned every page of this report,” she says. “It was detailed, specific and designed, revealing the dichotomy between imperial maps and everyday realities. Since this project, I have learned more about the archive of climate history and what it tells us. It got me thinking: In the early 19th century, an attempt to predict the Indian monsoon ended like this. [colonial interests]”
The brass cluster used in the artwork is from a toy found in a second-hand market in Karachi. There are 76 cast brass tiles that make up the map of the cities affected by the storm. Khan said General Zia-ul-Haq's discriminatory politics led to the establishment of the Women's Action Forum (WAF) platform in 1981.
One of Khan's favorite works in the exhibition is Zubaydah Agha's “playful” 1956 oil on canvas, created in the same year as Pakistan's Constitution, when Pakistan became an Islamic Republic. The work is “Karachi by Night.'' “Pakistani artists have opposed many political and social forms of censorship,” Khan says. “Art is a resistance and critique of the social order, a mirror of truth, and this is one of the strengths of art produced in Pakistan.”
The exhibition will also showcase the works of architects such as Yasmin Lali and Nayyar Ali Dada and explore how they reflect Pakistan's evolving identity. The award highlights sustainable design, climate action and the transformative role of the Aga Khan Prize in architecture. This award recognizes Lari's community-focused design, Restoration of Shigar Fort.
The museum courtyard has three flood relief bamboo shelters designed by Lali and the Pakistan Cultural Heritage Foundation. The focus is also on Zahoor-ul-Akhlaq, who until recently was relatively understudied despite being widely recognized as one of the most influential Pakistani artists. In an essay for the museum catalog, Mirza describes Akhlaq as a central figure who “connected the art of the present to the art of the past” by bridging historical practices such as Mughal miniature painting and Islamic geometry with postmodern sensibilities. is emphasized.
Mirza said she found her own artistic language in 1984 after reading Gabriel García Márquez's “One Hundred Years of Solitude,'' which she found on a friend's bookshelf. “I read it,” he says. “And I thought, 'Oh my God, why can't I do through my own work what he accomplished through literature?”
Mirza graduated from the National College of Arts, Lahore in 1986 and received a master's degree in painting from the Royal College of Art, London in 1991. He is especially inspired by children's drawings. In Mirza's opinion, the highlight of the show was Huma Baba's ' orientalista powerful and thought-provoking piece that features an ambiguous figure sitting in a chair with a mix of human, alien, and totemic characteristics.
“This sculpture is somehow disfigured, decayed, dehumanized,” says Mirza. “Everyone can read it through their own lens. But to me, it's a kind of rotten or corrupt authority, like Zia-ul-Haq.”
