June 5, 2004

As you drive down the Boating Basin towards Old Clifton, you will see on your right a wonderfully colourful glass assemblage that, when the sun is shining through it, lifts your spirits. Gleaming from the roof of a house, it signposts the studio of sculptor Amin Gulgee; moving between innovative, contemporary perceptions and contemplative spirituality in the form of calligraphy.

Amin’s work is intricate, the cerebral input as apparent as the strong aesthetic inclination. His is a studio always full of sound and the accoutrements of metal work but every so often he gives in to the fun side and creates jewellry that makes gold look passe; or he gets involved with fashion happenings where marvelously impractical metal ensembles are paraded by ‘impossibly’ beautiful girls.

The national award-winning artist is an enthusiastic, dynamo of a person who puts himself into his work body and soul. His most recent project is an epic, a paean to Karachi, a city he loves and finds inspiring for its vitality, tenacity and the history linked to a 5,000 year-old civilization. To celebrate Karachi and its citizens, Amin has been working for over a year on the incredible 40ft high sculpture: ‘Forgotten Text’.

It is an awesome merging of elements and media: copper, metal, glass, iron and computer motherboards, transformed into a unique work of art. At a private viewing of the work held at his studio in March, the fragmented construction laid out horizontally at eye level to facilitate close viewing, fascinated guests and the five corporate sponsors alike with its diversity of textures and components.

Gulgee Senior, who had been unwell, made a welcome appearance, eager to discuss the intriguing work of his son. Visitors took the opportunity to touch the work by running their fingers over surfaces aware of the ‘one-off’ experience offered at that time. Each segment of the work appeared rife with meaning.

Several favoured metaphors used in the artist’s visual language of signs and symbols were incorporated; the large ‘all seeing’ eye of glass that will top the structure and protect the city; the references to IT as a symbol of progress; traces of a yet undeciphered script by way of hieroglyphics that speak of an early civilization.

Amin explained that the text that he used for the sculpture is from Mohenjodaro and likens Karachi to Mohenjodaro as a “vibrant centre for ideas and innovation and arose because of trade and commerce.” He described the work as being made from “three hieroglyphic symbols joined together to create a form suggestive of a chariot racer”. As concepts change and you no longer have to be inside four walls to experience art, often the meaning of an artwork is left to the imagination of the observer. Scheduled to be installed at a roundabout in Clifton close to the artist’s home, the monumental sculpture as a landscape feature offers a narrative that encompasses the sophistication of urban life and its changing focus while still retaining echoes of the past.

Amin Gulgee is one of the leading representatives of young non-figurative sculptors in the country who works in the specific media of the times. The advantage of metal, he says, is that it can be used in a number of ways and is as durable as stone. Scheduled to be officially installed on June 8, Amin explained his attempts to “marry the past and the present” through his use of materials, incorporating glass and Sindhi mirrors.

These, he says, “are made of metal silicates and silicon, a substance of the primordial past, and is used on modern technology, particularly in the creation of transistors and solar cells. The overall effect will be to reflect not just the light, but ourselves as a city and as a nation”.