KARACHI: How does one enjoy a group show that contains dozens of artworks? Well, one way is to stay as much as you can at the gallery space where they are placed and take pictures (wonders of the modern age) to engage with them later. A collaborative exhibition titled 1X1 that is under way at the Full Circle Art Gallery is an elaborate effort that needs a great deal of concentration to imbibe what’s on offer. But once you get the hang of the programme, the joy of seeing a wide variety of creative outputs is hard to describe.

Here’s the curatorial reason for the expansive set-up: “[The] event was born from the desire to cross-pollinate between galleries and curators nationally which in itself is a rare occurrence.” One such display took place last year in Karachi and Islamabad, and this year the organisers “decided to expand their efforts to include Lahore” too, affording them “new avenues to explore curatorially”. This means that after the Sindh capital, the exhibition will travel to Lahore and Islamabad.

Now because of the large number of paintings on view, the phrase ‘spoilt for choice’ springs to mind. This is the good kind of ‘spoilt’ for what you see is a variety of ways and media in which the participating artists –– those who have earned formidable reputations as well as the relatively less celebrated but no less talented ones –– have explored life in its many imaginable and imagined manifestations.

To give one example, there’s an interesting image of two iconic actors in one frame: Dilip Kumar and Vivien Leigh (Indian ink on paper). Both represent entirely different cultural milieus but belong to the same profession –– the profession where imitation and reality merge. Kumar’s picture is from the movie where he plays a prince and Leigh’s look is from a famous Gone with the Wind sequence. By bringing the two together the artist has made a perceptive comment on the efficacy of art, which directly relates to our common existence: no matter what part of the world we live in, we laugh, cry, emote and feel sad or happy for reasons that have human attributes, not geographical features.

The artists who have taken part in the show, among others, include: Afshar Malik, R.M. Naeem, Farrukh Shahab, Adeel uz Zafar, Ali Azmat, Zehra Asim, Aqeel Solangi, Aakif Suri and Farhat Ali.

The exhibition concludes on March 16.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2020