0
The recent informal launch of digitised art archives by Foundation of Museum of Modern Art (Fomma) links the dreams of two art visionaries of Pakistan, Ali Imam and Jalaluddin Ahmed. It was Imam, who, in the 1970s began this collection of newspaper press cuttings which has become a valuable research resource today. With thousands of art reviews, interviews and art reports, the archive encompasses the art history of the last three decades of the 20th century. All of this would have been lost to public memory had it not been the relentless efforts of Ahmed, the moving spirit behind Fomma, who understood its significance and has made it available to a wider intergenerational internet audience.
Both these art patriarchs of Pakistan, Imam and Ahmed, have made an unparalleled contribution with their immense passion for visual arts. Ahmed in his own words came almost on the last flight out of Delhi as the Partition communal riots consumed the city. Put on the plane by his friends, he arrived in the new country broke, but ready to serve it with his energy and intellect to consolidate the field of culture. His contribution emerged in writing, documentation and dissemination of information which led to the authoring of a seminal text on the artists of the early decades. He founded Art and the Islamic World, which was published out of London and foregrounded art practices of Muslim artists and their Pan Islamic legacy. For most of the last decade, since Ahmed moved back to Karachi, he has devoted his time to the consolidation of the Fomma Art Trust and its art publication enterprise. Fomma projects in this short time have created opportunities for art writers and nurtured a corporate relationship in support of the visual arts in Pakistan.
While Ahmed has commissioned many biographies of masters and artists for Fomma in the last decade, he has always declined to talk about his own journey with the visual arts. Imam’s biography facilitated by the artist’s own notes was printed by Fomma a few years ago, again as a result of Ahmed’s foresight to persuade Marjorie Husain, a friend of Imam and a well-known art critic. It documents Imam’s pedagogic influence on a generation of artists. The creative combined with the pragmatic, shaped Imam’s contribution when he deprioritised his art practice in favour of establishing Indus Gallery and cultivating a cadre of informed collectors to ensure the sustainability of art. From the 1960s onwards, his efforts were instrumental in mainstreaming Modern Art in the country’s institutions and private homes.
I consider both these patriarchs as my mentors. It was Ali Imam and Sadequain who inspired me to enter the field in the 1970s. Imam’s fondness for his students never kept him from being a scathing critic when one fell short of demanding standards. Always generous with his time, I remember dropping in at the Indus Gallery after picking up my children from school to see a show once only to find him preparing lunch on his cook’s off day. Without hesitation he stepped out of the kitchen to discuss the work. Even as a gallerist, art was never a commodity but an extension of his life.
When I had been writings for a while, we sometimes did not see eye to eye on subjects but he took it in good spirit, as the prerogative of a younger generation to have its own interpretation. It is his wisdom that I miss most.
I was introduced to Jalaluddin Ahmed through his journal Art and the Islamic World which led me to seek him out in London one summer in the mid 1990s. His energy and passion remained with me and since he has returned to Pakistan, we have had many chances to work together.
Ahmed’s success as an art publisher and persuasive advocate of visual arts in a social environment far from receptive to visual expression is nothing short of a miracle. With his passion he has built bridges of cooperation with the corporate world and the public sector agencies so that their resources can be used to establish an Art History Research Centre at Racecourse Grounds and The Fomma Art Centre in Zamzama Park in Karachi. He inspires all with his gentle old world courtesy and steely determination.
Always one to understate his personal achievements, his enthusiasm is about future projects and putting together a team to execute them. Like Imam, the inspirational narrative of Jalaluddin Ahmed, the pioneer, thinker and activist who carved out a place of importance for art archives, needs documentation, for if for any reason it remains untold, a terrible void will be created.
