In the early 1990s, a young student saw some experimental art installations at the Frere Hall Gallery and remarked that the art was very ‘New Yorkish.’ Although the student had never been out of Karachi, he perceived the work as foreign. This young man’s reading was a very honest response to art that he could not relate to. The disconnect of the common person on the street with what is appreciated in the elite galleries is a global phenomenon. In Pakistan, the separation of the private and the public is more defined, marking the insularity of elite circles.

Historically, fine art has seen a rupture far greater than what was seen in the literature or poetry of local languages. As art became influenced by Western modernity, communities all over the world noticed a distinction between art and craft. In his 1939 essay Avant-Garde and Kitsch, the influential American art critic Clement Greenberg defines kitsch as the product of industrialisation and the urbanisation of the working class. ‘Hi-art’ was to be cultivated by the privileged, whereas whatever was on the street was for the masses and was termed as ‘Lo art’. These separations seeped into the consciousness of Third World countries almost as a mindset. Artists who got educated in Western art colleges, and returned to Pakistan in the 1950s and ’60s, played an important role in cultivating these hierarchies and detached themselves from the aesthetics of the masses. Fine art developed in Pakistan against this backdrop, and hence the concept of public art did not take root, let alone flourish. An art gallery today may appear like a museum abroad, and yet the vicinity outside it is starkly different.

The only ‘art’ that we have been used to seeing in public places in a city like Karachi has been war imagery and fighter planes at traffic roundabouts. The landmarks of the ‘Do Talwar’ and ‘Teen Talwar’ in Clifton, Karachi, depict swords. There was also the giant fist at Mukka Chowk in Azizabad, another symbol of power. It has now been pulled down.

A public art festival dazzles Karachiites with its flamboyant and theatrical quality

Two years ago, Karachi witnessed its first art biennale, KB 17, where we saw a movement of gallery art into non-art spaces in the older parts of District East, Saddar, and its vicinity. It can be argued whether or not there really was a change in cultivating new audiences based on demographics and social/economic standing, and how much of the art was seen by ‘non-art’ audiences. The question also arises whether there has been an insistence on bridging hierarchies or reinforcing them by finding a larger canvas and square feet area for gallery art to show in.

The International Public Art Festival (IPAF), a project of ‘I am Karachi’, recently launched a three-day public art festival. Art shown inside containers at the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) created considerable excitement within the art circles. Curated by Amin Gulgee, Zarmineh Shah and Sara Pagganwala, it was titled The Quantum City: Territory, Space, Place.

Typical of Gulgee’s curatorial style, there were ambiguities, disruptions, new connections, flamboyance and a theatrical quality in the overall aesthetic value of the show. Gulgee and visitors were driven around in a rickshaw on the opening night. It was a moving artwork with his intervention of welded steel and mirrors on to the structure. The artist brought disparate works and conversations into a simultaneous happening, thus linking differences in unexpected ways, and allowing chance to determine that.

Ammad Tahir’s performance was perhaps the most compelling and interactive part of the show on the opening night. Looking up at him standing behind a ‘bullet proof’ glass, his impersonation of politicians such as Benazir Bhutto made potent connections to the turbulent history and neglect of Lyari. Standing atop a container, the artist’s performance mirrored and critiqued the sociopolitical with humour and cynicism.

Sohail Zuberi’s photographic documentation of the recent anti-encroachment drive of the Burnes Road area was displayed on the buildings’ debris. Such a powerful depiction of the displacement and disruption happening nearby, and admired as art, raises many questions about the ownership of spaces and exploitation of the weak.

Countless other works explored, provoked or left the viewer with unresolved questions. Perhaps that, too, is a place to examine more critically instead of hailing all art as a saviour.Karachi needs many of these collaborations to narrate its story.

“The Quantum City: Territory, Space, Place” took place in containers outside the Karachi Port Trust building from March 14 to March 16, 2019

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 31st, 2019