Bulhan Bachao - An Exhibition at AAN Art Space & Museum

AAN Art Space & Museum is pleased to announce and help support the opening of the exhibition, ‘A Culture of Care’ which is co-curated by Taabir Noorani and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This exhibition is a project of the Bhulan Bachao initiative to create awareness and raise funds for the preservation and conservation of the indigenous wildlife of the River Indus.

‘A Culture of Care’ will focus on works of art that highlight the right to dignity for both humans as well as wildlife. Artists were invited to produce works that reflect Pakistan’s wildlife conservation, indigenous culture and traditional crafts. All proceeds will go to support Bulhan Bachao’s field and educational programs.

Game Changer by Imran Qureshi - A Project of AAN Ideas Lab

“Game Changer incorporates both the energy of cricket and the vocabulary of internationally acclaimed visual artist Imran Qureshi. The figure is welding a bat almost like a sword and it is composed of cricket balls which are covered with Qureshi’s floral like motifs which are inspired by the landscapes of Indian Mughal court paintings. The stance of the batsman is as powerful as the team it symbolizes! Qureshi is master of action painting and here instead of a brush he throws six balls at the canvas to complete the ‘over’. The bounces and treads that the ball create in this ‘over’ on the canvas reveals the perineal contest between a batsman and a bowler. The batsman is present on the canvas while the bowler thought absent is very much ‘present’ in the form of his powerful throws”. - Amna Naqvi

The fabulous artwork ‘Game Changer’ which was created by the international acclaimed artist Imran Qureshi @imranqureshiartist for the celebration of Islamabad United’s third Championship in the Pakistan Super League in 2024! This work was unveiled in Islamabad by the cricketers Shadab Khan and Imad Wasim alongwith Imran Qureshi, Ali Naqvi and Amna Naqvi at the celebration dinner in May 2024! This work is a further offshoot of IQXIU project in 2022 which was a collaboration between Qureshi and Islamabad Islamabad United! @islamabadunitedpsl @alinaqvi808

Amna Naqvi - Guest Lecturer at The University of Hong Kong (HKU)

Amna Naqvi, Co-Founder of AAN Foundation was invited as a Guest Speaker at the Department of Art History at The University of Hong Kong(HKU) to talk about Pakistani art both in its historic and contemporary forms. The lecture focused on the classical, modern and contemporary artworks in the AAN Collection as well as the work of the AAN Foundation and AAN Ideas Lab. She discussed the works of over forty artists. 

AAN Ideas LAB - An Initiative of the AAN Foundation launches IQXIU - A Collaboration between Islamabad United and artist Imran Qureshi.

The Most Successful PSL Franchise Islamabad United, proudly go one step ahead this season! Presenting #IQxIU - World's first ever Cricket x Art collaboration with globally celebrated artist Imran Qureshi.

The artistic output of the project will be seen across the team’s official kit, and much more!

Amna Naqvi - Co Founder of AAN Foundation Contributes a Comprehensive Essay for the Publication 'I Am And I Am Not'

The catalogue for the retrospective exhibition 'I Am And I Am Not' by Aisha Khalid has been launched this afternoon at the iconic Frere Hall, Karachi. This catalogue accompanies the exhibition of the same title.

We at AAN are pleased that our founder Amna Naqvi is one of the writers who has contributed to to this publication and has written a comprehensive essay about Aisha Khalid's practice of twenty-eight years. "The Door Is Open, Let The Beauty We Love Be What We Do" is the title of the essay and is a verse from Jalaluddin Rumi's poetry. This essay covers Aisha Khalid's vast and multi-faceted fine art practice including paintings, in-situ and textile installations as well as other explorations.

About the Writer

Amna Tirmizi Naqvi is a collector, philanthropist, writer, thought leader and a supporter of the visual arts for over twenty years. The AAN Foundation which she has co-founded, creates platforms for Pakistani artists to launch ambitious projects in Pakistan, Asia and globally. The Foundation is supported by over nine hundred works of art in the AAN Collection, which have been exhibited in over fifty museums and public institutions such as The Met, Guggenheim Museum, Belvedere Museum, Venice Biennale, Mohatta Palace Museum and Singapore Art Museum. A former banker, she has been on the Global Council for Art & Culture, Asia Society and a member of the SAAC, Tate Modern. She has also published and supported over twenty five art publications. She is regularly invited to speak at institutions such as the Museum of Fine Art Boston, Art Basel, Columbia University, TEDx, amongst others. She has contributed to publications for DB Kunst Halle, Whitworth Art Gallery and Gandhara Art. She is regularly featured in global art publications such as Occula, Orientations, The Financial Times and Sotheby’s Magazine amongst others.

I Am I Am Not - A Retrospective Exhibition of Aisha Khalid

AAN Gandhara Art Space & Museum is honoured to be one of the three venues for Aisha Khalid’s Retrospective ‘I Am, I Am Not’.Curated by Masuma Halai Khwaja, the show brings into focus Khalid’s 28-year practice, spotlighting her unique journey. Khalid has played a vital role in the contemporary neo miniature movement, receiving global acclaim for her conflations of pattern and geometry, and meditations on power dynamics, the North-South divide, as well as spiritual connections.Spread across three venues, from the iconic Frere Hall to Chawkandi Art Gallery and AAN Gandhara Art Space, the show will offer audiences a chance to survey, in curator Khwaja’s words, the “nuanced complexities” and dualities that Khalid captures with her distinct imagery and visual vocabulary. Join us from 28th November 2021— 8th January 2022.

AAN Gandhara Art Space will now be called the AAN Art Space & Museum.

In the spirit of the ethos of the AAN Foundation, AAN Gandhara Art Space will now be called the AAN Art Space & Museum.

For over 15 years, the AAN Gandhara Art Space has been a dedicated space in Karachi which aims to break ground and challenge notions of both practice as well as narrative in exhibition making by being a platform for not only established and younger artists but for writers, curators and art historians as well. The Museum impending exhibition will be ‘I Am, I Am Not’ the Retrospective Exhibition of the artist Aisha Khalid which will include seventy artworks covering a 28 year art practice. The AAN Art Space & Museum is one of the three venues for this exhibition.

“Culture defines who we are, and if that is not shared, disseminated and hence preserved, it can be lost. Art and culture are susceptible to rampant global homogenization, and we felt that there were ideas, philosophies, voices and opinions that needed to be discovered and explored”. – Amna Naqvi, Co-Founder,

AAN Foundation in an interview to Ocula Magazine, 2016.

With almost 900 works in the collection and over fifteen years of exhibition making, please welcome the AAN Art Space & Museum.

AAN Foundation - A very significant part of the AAN Foundation’s aim is to provide support at the very initial/conceptual stages, to projects, which could become platforms for further strengthening the artistic space in their own areas and geographies. The AAN Foundation has been instrumental in building platforms for new work and supporting artists to show their work on a global stage, through exhibitions, private as well as public art projects, publications and other experimental initiatives both in Karachi as well as globally. This includes being the lead on exhibitions such as the Apparatus of Power by Shahzia Sikander at Asia Society Hong Kong, 2016, the Central Sponsor of the Inaugural Lahore Biennale, 2018 and support for the Asia Art Archive exhibition 36 Calendars by Song Dong in Hong Kong in 2013, as well as numerous projects in Asia, Europe and the Americas.

AAN Collection - The Foundation’s initiatives are also complemented and informed by the AAN Collection which comprises of almost 900 works of art ranging from 3rd Century Gandhara sculptures to 17th Century Mughal miniatures and contemporary works of art. Works from the collection have been part of major exhibitions at over 45 public institutions and museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Belvedere Vienna, the Singapore Art Museum, The Venice Biennial, The Sharjah Biennial, The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and MAXXI Museum Rome amongst others.

AAN Publication - It has also published over 25 publications focusing on contemporary art and has commissioned art historians, curators and art critics to contribute to this documentation of the Pakistan art space.#aanideas #aanartspaceandmuseum #aanfoundation #aancollection #aanpublication #art #contemporaryart #modernart #artspace #museum

The AAN Foundation was honored at the Asia Society Art and Culture Gala

The AAN Foundation will be honored by the Asia Society at the Arts and Culture Gala along with other leaders in the field of art and culture!

We are honoured and humbled! #aanfoundation #aancollection #aanideas

We're excited to introduce our Arts and Culture Virtual Gala honorees! In the spirit of celebrating diversity and inclusion, we honor trailblazers of the arts in Hong Kong and globally at our gala, held in celebration of our 30th anniversary.

#ASHK30 #arts #culture #diversity #inclusion

Amna Naqvi - Guest Lecturer at Columbia University

Co-Founder of the AAN Foundation, Amna Naqvi is a guest lecturer at Columbia University. She speaks to students about the history of miniature painting as well as its contemporary manifestation. 

Amna Naqvi speaks at Art Basel Conversations on a panel titled 'Uncovering Asian Modernisms'

Our founder Amna Naqvi speaking at Art Basel Conversations this year.

She spoke on a panel titled 'Ink & Paint: Uncovering Asian Modernisms' on 30th of March with a great list of speakers. The panel was moderated by Lesley Ma, Curator, M+ Museum, Hong Kong and included leaders in the fields of exhibiting and supporting modernism in Asia such as Johnson Chang & Yamamoto San.

She spoke on modernists AR Chughtai, Shakir Ali, Sadequain, AJ Shemza and Zahoor Ul Akhlaque in the conversation and linked them to those who inherited their mantle such as Shahzia Sikander, Rashid Rana, Aisha Khalid and Imran Qureshi.

#artbasel #artbaselhongkong #modernism #asianmodernism

Scroll: An AAN Foundation Project will be exhibited at Pitzer Art Galleries in California, United States

The AAN Foundation Project 'Scroll' I is part of our 'Projects on Paper Series" which was published in the autumn of 2015 in conjunction with the AAN Gandhara Art Space exhibition 'How We Mark The Land' . Scroll I has been touring in the exhibition organised by the Independent Curators International. It has been exhibited at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art in Capetown and the Center for Contemporary Art, Lagos. Its latest stop is the Pitzer Art Galleries in California. The first edition was curated by Aziz Sohail.

About Publishing Against The Grain

Organized by the Independent Curators International (ICI), Publishing Against the Grain provides a space for reading, thinking, and conversing, where slowing down can become a form of intellectual resistance. It encourages discursive public participation, self-reflective investigation, and invites visitors to discover new perspectives while connecting differing and analogous spheres of contemporary art. 

The exhibition was made possible with the generous support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, ICI’s Board of Trustees and International Forum. - Text Credits: Pitzer College

Adeel Uz Zafar Residente 2018 de la Fundación AAN (Pakistán)

The AAN Foundation is pleased to announce that Adeel Uz Zafar has begun his residency as the Residente 2018 de la Fundacion AAN (The AAN Foundation Resident 2018) at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Cordoba,

Scroll: An AAN Foundation Project will be exhibited at Kenyon College, United States

Scroll: An AAN Foundation Project will be shown at ‘Publishing Against the Grain’ exhibition at the Gund Gallery at Kenyon College, Ohio, United States. This is the third stop of the traveling exhibition.It has been shown at the Zeitz Musueum of Contemporary Art, South Africa as well as Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos, Nigeria.  Scroll was created by Aziz Sohail!

Publishing Against the Grain opens next Friday, August 31 @gundgallery. The exhibition encourages discursive public participation, self-reflective investigation, and invites visitors to discover new perspectives.

'Of Honor and The Moment' - Amna Naqvi's Profile featured in Portfolio Magazine (Singapore), August 2018 Issue

Our Founder Amna Naqvi featured in an article in Portfolio Magazine - August 2018 issue.

“By being a custodian, I don’t just mean being a keeper of the collection, but having an engagement with art and curatorial practices as well. If collectors do not grow beyond collecting artworks, then it leads to a sense of inertia. I think as collections grow, collectors need to stretch the boundaries by being bold in their choice of artworks as well as in collaborating with art practitioners on new ideas and projects. They need to morph into collaborators as well as collectors.”

AAN Foundation Launches The LBF-AAN Research Grant 2018

AAN Foundation Artist-In-Residence Program in Spain - A Collaboration with the C3A, Centre for Contemporary Art Andalucia, Cordoba, Spain