In The Deep End

The river is within us, the sea is all about us.

- T.S. Eliot

“The sea has many voices/ Many gods and many voices”, T.S. Eliot wrote. We first sense the world through the fluid inside our mother’s womb, we communicate with the world outside through this body of water. Once born we are really thrown into the deep end of the endless ocean we call ‘life’. Only to be consumed by it. Encountering, batting or embracing its demons and its gods. 

Oceans have held varying places in the imagination of societies, always linked to particular cultures and shifting in line with predominant world views and developing socio-economic and technological capacities. There are many ways of conceptualising the ocean, and different concepts exist concurrently, resulting in a multiplicity of perspectives that are changing over time. Water (such as the sea) thus, may become a metaphor for birth and rebirth, violence and death, self-discovery, spiritual journey, metamorphosis, change, inspiration and renewal. It becomes a language of our experience, a voice to our emotions. Its fluid nature allows it to be adaptive to each of our needs. Over and over again. Like the endless motion of the waves.

 - Malika Abbas

Chinese Whispers

‘Now that the greatest knot of fury had been undone  [... ], finally his face has become serene and radiant, his eyes clearer than ever it was in the exercise of his past reasons. What does he say?’ He said: Leave me like this, I have come full circle and I understand. The world must be read upside down. Everything makes sense now.

“The Tale of Roland Crazed with Love”
-Italo Calvino

Notes From a Familiar Place

This exhibition with these five young artists, attempts to register and document their associations and negotiations with space and place. Places that they inhabit, places that they walk and travel through, places that they investigate, excavate and dig into, places that they look at tenderly and care for, places of pain and also that of healing, places that are up-close and intimate, and others that are distant, places from their memory and places in their imaginary.

This is an exhibition in conversation with Fazal Rizvi

I AM, I AM NOT

Aisha Khalid’s retrospective entitled ‘I Am And I Am Not’ is intended to draw on her prominent artworks from 1994 to 2021, beginning with small-sized paintings, to full-scale installations, textile-based tapestries, video pieces, art books, and more towards her recent works.

As a notable woman artist, educationalist, agriculturist, and curator, Aisha Khalid has effortlessly advanced herself to become one of the most prominent artists of her day. Since the nineteen-nineties Khalid has played a key role in the art movement of contemporary neo-miniature painting, redefining miniature painting art in Pakistan and its reception worldwide. Creating dramatic conflations of pattern and geometry, which forms a field of inquiry that reflects the power dynamics, the North-South divide, as these are deeply concerned with the spiritual connections.
As the retrospective offers an opportunity to survey the multidisciplinary approach of Aisha Khalid as Pakistan’s most celebrated contemporary artist, engaged in the art that is purposeful and poignant. The art pieces reflect her deep sense of cogitation.

The Exhibition is curated by Masuma Halai Khwaja and organized by the Chawkandi Art Galley.
Sponsored by HBL. 

The Architecture of Being II

The Architecture Of Being

“Architecture is the learned game; correct and magnificent of forms assembled in the light”. - Le Corbusier.

Reexamine Retrace

The rise of new media, viewed by some as a threat to the future of traditional printmaking, has led Studio R.M and Adeel uz Zafar to conceive a show, which renews the investigation of traditional methods and known classical techniques. With these intentions, they have invited those rising and established artists, whose imagery and technical application already employ traditional techniques, to then utilize traditional printmaking methodologies to create original artworks.

Microcosm 4

A generational challenge has already been taken up and this idea has been explored in many major international projects in a global context. Youthfulness is a highly subjective topic and in the last years of boom, various artists came to the fore representing a new generation (young means under- 40). Based on the conviction that some of the most radical gestures in the art history have been carried out by the artists in early stages of their career, this curated exhibition, investigation or survey emphasizes the stars of tomorrow’s art scene who bring a myriad of visual culture influences in their art practice

Microcosm will bring insight into how this generation of artists experiencing and reinterpreting their attitude, identity, environment, tastes, sexualities and political learning through their artwork. This exhibition will offer a rich, intricate, multidisciplinary exploration of the work in a variety of media-ranging from drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, illustration, photography, video and few surprising mix.

Archival Memory

This exhibition looks into the practices of artists as a means to record and archive ideas, emotions and experiences. The artist takes on the roles of the observer and the historian simultaneously. Their own experiences therefore define the editing of this particular archive.

Archives, as spaces of and catalysts for memory play a central role in society’s means of remembering.

In creating these archival documents artists are giving form to their own imagined realities. These ‘imagined realities’ may or may not have existed but are depicted in these visual narratives of grief, loss, joy and commemoration.

Paradise Lost

“Paradise Lost” explores the onerous political, religious and social constructs that have re-shaped the fabric of Pakistan over the decades; yet, despite the weighty subject matter, Zafar manages to expertly weave into his work the limitless curiosity, capriciousness, and hope which has come to characterise his artistic endeavours. The works occupy seven distinct sections of the gallery space, with each compartment acting as a sanctum giving voice to a whispered national confession; which calls into question our festering apathy and silent acquiescence in the face of increasing hostility.

From The Hills To The Sea II - Pouring Concrete Curing Mountains

Transformation of a hill town into an urbanized labyrinth endless production of concrete structures
hopeless degeneration of habitats

and forests.

A continuation of last year’s resident artist Madiha Aijaz’s project, who was interested in illegal grey structures encroaching upon the forests.

Featuring the works of Arif Mahmood, Faraz Aamer Khan, Hira Nabi, Noor us Saba Saeed and Zohreen Murtaza.

'I Love You', & Other Works From The AAN Collection

‘I Love You’
& Other Works From The AAN Collection

Featuring the works of 

Bani Abidi, Khadim Ali, Aisha Khalid, Imran Qureshi
and Anushka Rustomji

The title for this exhibition has been borrowed from a video installation by the artist Bani Abidi which is titled ‘I Love You’ and which features the artists Rashid Rana, Imran Qureshi, Aisha Khalid, Asma Mundrawala and various other pronouncing this phrase silently.  

This exhibition will delve into the elusive nature of these often repeated words from our vernacular. Words which are meant to exhibit the purest of emotion and are so potent with meaning, yet sometimes are threatened by their over usage in this digital age.

 It will offer a glimpse into the AAN Collection with works by Bani Abidi, Khadim Ali, Aisha Khalid, Imran Qureshi which have been selected for this show as well as an in-situ installation especially created by Anushka Rustumji for this exhibition.

The exhibition is curated by Malika Abbas with Amna Naqvi serving as a curatorial advisor.

Microcosm 3

Microcosm III brings insight into how this generation of artists experiences and reinterprets identity, sexuality, enviornment and political learning through art.

This multidisciplinary exhibition includes drawing, painting, sculpture installation, photography, jewelry, video and more. The show has been curated by Adeel uz Zafar

and showcase 20 female artists.

'If You Have A Garden In Your Library' .... II

“The kind of library is made for me. I can decide to pass a whole day there in bliss: I read the papers, take the books down to the bar, then I go to look for some more. I make my discoveries, having gone into work on say British Empiricism; I start to follow commentaries on Aristotle instead. On getting the floor wrong, I find myself in an area, I hadn’t thought to enter, on medicine, but then I suddenly find works on Galen and hence complete with philosophical references. In this sense the library becomes an adventure.”

- Umberto Eco

An essay by Umberto Eco titled "Di Bibliotheca" (The Library) which was read at a conference held in March 1981 on the 25th Anniversary of Bibliotheca Comunale in Milano at Palazzo Sormani. It was subsequently published in Quaderni di Palazzo Sormani in 1981

Cyra Ali, Onaiz Taji, Samya Arif and Sara Khan will be exhibiting in the first show. This exhibition is the second part of the series.

The exhibition is curated by Malika Abbas with Amna Naqvi serving as a curatorial advisor.

'If You Have A Garden In Your Library' .... I

'If You Have A Garden In Your Library' .... I is the title of the show opening at AAN Gandhara Art Space on 11th April 2019. The point of departure for the show was a paragraph by Umberto Eco. “The kind of library is made for me. I can decide to pass a whole day there in bliss: I read the papers, take the books down to the bar, then I go to look for some more. I make my discoveries, having gone into work on say British Empiricism; I start to follow commentaries on Aristotle instead. On getting the floor wrong, I find myself in an area, I hadn’t thought to enter, on medicine, but then I suddenly find works on Galen and hence complete with philosophical references. In this sense the library becomes an adventure.”

An essay by Umberto Eco titled "Di Bibliotheca" (The Library) which was read at a conference held in March 1981 on the 25th Anniversary of Bibliotheca Comunale in Milano at Palazzo Sormani. It was subsequently published in Quaderni di Palazzo Sormani in 1981. Saba Khan, Wardha Shabbir, Mehreen Zuberi and Mohsin Shafi will be exhibiting in the first show. This exhibition is part of a two part series and Part II will follow this show. 

Depicture

"Depicture" seeks to address the transient nature of time-based media and calls upon the participating artists to contemplate the potentially non-archival quality of their work. Will their work remain accessible to viewers lets say, 50 years from now? The exhibition also seeks to consider the role of the artist while shaping intellectual and shared history; examining heritage through architectural spaces/dilapidated colonial buildings as well as new urbanism and its impact on quality of life and the destruction or lack of preservation of nature/natural landscapes and the sea due to urban development. All the artists in the exhibition are social practitioners, photographers and/or filmmakers and their work unfolds to the viewer over time in different ways. Artists featured in this exhibition include Aisha Abid Hussain, Ali Sultan, Iqra Tanveer, Jovita Alvares, Malika Abbas, Numair Abbasi, Nurjahan Akhlaq, Veera Rustomji. Curated by Alia Bilgrami