December 18, 2004

With Ramazan over, Lahore manages to bounce back to its activity-filled calendar: festivals, art exhibitions and almost everything that is culture and art is back on track. An outlet that was in the frame-making business for some time has developed a greater interest in art, ending up in collecting and exhibiting art. The beginning of a new kind of presentation, through the perks of surveillance cameras and fastidious lights, means that the art gallery business has arrived.

The Ejaz Galleries changed its location and celebrated this by bringing together ‘The Existence’, a display of works by over a hundred artists. The works comprise watercolour, miniature, oil, sculpture, ceramic, stone, metal and wood. Bringing all this together is no small task. Moreover, the show includes works by artists from all over the country, both seniors, and fresh graduates.

The new purpose-built building cover an area of about 8,000 square feet for art display, a workshop for making frames, and the basement holds accommodation for out-of-town artists, who may want to exhibit and have no place to stay. An area is allocated for reading, while a cafeteria is planned for the near future. With this substantial display of many shades of work, however, there is a need for curatorial services more than ever before.

Putting up big or small shows of art, the choice, the placing, the inclusion and much more, have to be done on scientific basis and in accordance with some pre-conceived theme. This need can be filled by art students, teachers and the gallery owners themselves.

Calligraphy of the Quranic verses continues to hold the interest of the artists, with composition and colours changing, experimentation with visual values becoming more explicit than before, the non-Arabic script not raising its head just yet. Calligraphic art has Gulgee’s composition in oils on display that swirls with the colours, winding and brilliant. Ahmed Khan compiles script with chemically treated silver and gold, the lettering swaying with an intrinsic rhythm aligned to the edges of a torn fabric. Arif Khan and Asad Farooqi show trends that move in the contemporary world of their own.

Ali Kazim, sets the upper half of a male torso, dark-skinned, against a stark white background, whereas one sees Mughees Riaz and Ali Azmat, both young and upcoming art teachers, experimenting with spaces to give meaning to a void. The senior artists, Dr Khalid Mahmud for one, involves himself with the corporeal quality of colours. Colin David is seen moving on with hues and focusing on the tones of the female form. Ghulam Rasul tediously observes shapes, simplifying them with awe and fascination for the light. M. Asif gives the viewer a portrait of RM to experience, and Ishtiaq Sindhu, teaching art in Melbourne, Australia, adds to the display with his expressionistic work.

‘Woman and Pigeon’ by Jamil Naqsh is sombre, child-like, vulnerable and all that is within oneself. Wahab Jaffar, exponent of the early modernists in Pakistan, carries in his work the Ahmed Parvez exposure, displaying countenances, not in facets, rather in the indentations of colour that speak their own language. Jamil Baloch shows a silhouette of a soldier, with the heads of vultures scattered all over — a political statement made on canvas. The work of Akram Dost explains a dilemma, of life, the two genders in the present, setting it within a border of intricate embroidery stitches — often seen in the work of nomadic tribes. His colours are primitive and true.

Masood Hameed uses a large canvas, showing two half-clad male figures, like in a paradox, looking in the opposing directions with similar and different gestures by turns. This comes out as a realistic approach to expressing contradictions.

The traditional art in miniature stands its ground and with its popular subject too: the female figure. This is depicted both in its natural form and the conventional image. Though the entries in this media are few in number, the viewer can browse through the works of the masters, Ustad Bashir and Khalid Saeed Butt, as well as those belonging to the younger generation. This subject is again evident in the three-dimensional work by Tariq Kakar, Nasir Khalid, Tariq Usman Luni and Anjum Ayaz, while Dabir, Talat and Michu make their appearances in ceramic. Sculpture is making its timid appearances, but like in any other exhibition, the three-dimensional display is limited in terms of the entries.

Cityscapes and landscapes have for time immemorial held artists’ interest in the their grip. The medium can vary but the subject matter stays the same. The buildings that are part of heritage in any city inspire the artist no end; work by Zulqarnain Haider, Ghulam Mustafa, Mehboob Ali, Salim Ansari, Zulfi and A.Q. Arif carry overtures into this area. Minimalist, simplistic, and making a conscious choice to have little, then to go on to create, is looking at Mansur Aye, Rahi, Mussarat Mirza, and then moving on to Mashkoor Raza and towards Qudsia Nisar’s abstract expressionism.

With some artists exhibiting for the first time in this show, the art connoisseur gets a chance to appraise the innovative against the previous observations, while the established artist continues to involve diverse sections of society.