About the Galleries

Setting the Stage

The artistic and cultural heritage of the country now known as Pakistan far predates the Partition of 1947 and its establishment as a sovereign state. Prior to the Partition of the subcontinent, Pakistan’s renowned master painters such as Abdur Rahman Chughtai, Ustad Allah Bakhsh and Zainul Abedin had already established themselves as preeminent figures engaging in the rich historical and artistic traditions of the South Asian region. Zainul Abedin’s work depicted the natural environment and the everydayness of (mostly rural) life. However, it was perhaps his series of powerful and minimal works highlighting the struggle and suffering of millions during the Bengal Famine that truly brought him to prominence, cementing his position as one of the most influential pioneers of modern art in the region. Abdur Rahman Chughtai’s distinctive style was deeply rooted in Islamic aesthetics and Mughal and Persian miniature traditions, alongside a deep engagement with the work of Urdu poets and writers. Allah Bakhsh’s work was influenced by the Western academic style of painting patronised by the British during the colonial period. Despite the differences in their styles and influences, the subjects of these artists’ work remained rooted in place; in the land, landscape, culture, mythology and people of the subcontinent, speaking to a deeply rich, layered and progressive artistic legacy of visual languages in the region.

Place and Displacement

With the withdrawal of the British and Cyril Radcliffe’s dividing line in 1947, two new countries were born: the Republic of India and the Dominion of Pakistan, with the latter arbitrarily split into two unconnected territories, i.e. East and West Pakistan. The event of the Partition is often cited as one of the largest mass migrations in history, with close to 15 million people uprooted and displaced almost in an instant. The scars of the violence and bloodshed that accompanied this division of land, which left an estimated two million people dead, as cited by various sources, are still carried by many today. Works by artists such as Zarina and Anna Molka Ahmed speak directly to these traumas. And while the Partition of 1947 may often be spoken about as a singular moment in history, its residual impacts persist even today, with the continued legacy of these divisions addressed in the work of contemporary artists such as Bani Abidi and David Alesworth.

Formalist Experiments

Earlier historical models and readings saw Europe as the centre of artistic activity and intellectualism from which all other formations were derived. Modernism is no longer considered as historically fixed as it occurs in different ways, in different places, and at different times as relevant to its specificities. In the context of modern art in Pakistan, historian Akbar Naqvi marks 1948 as the moment when “modern art emerged from the country”, associated inherently with ideas of the ‘new’ and ‘modern’ in relation to the beliefs and hopes associated with the birth of the country. With the creation of the new nation came a zeal for the creation of new forms of articulation and identification, which signalled a desire to break away from the romantic lyricism of the old masters to find new modes of expression to speak to the present moment.

Artists like Zubeida Agha, Shakir Ali and Ali Imam travelled abroad and encountered the seismic shifts in art evident in European Modernism, returning to form their own distinct languages. Paintings by Murtaja Baseer from East Pakistan and F. N. Souza from India highlight the movements, influences, alliances and friendships which permeated through South Asian culture despite political divides. These artists came to form the heart of artistic activity and institutions in Pakistan’s urban centres, making invaluable contributions to their development and to the future of art making in the country for decades to come.

Abstraction and Calligraphy

In the context of postcolonial discourses on modernism, a distinctive mode of expression referred to as “calligraphic modernism” emerges in Pakistan in the 1960s and 70s. The artist Sadequain emerged as one of its most eminent figures. In his work, there is a powerful collision of elongated and abstracted, darkly emotive and expressive forms moving across active, layered and scratched surfaces. Often invoking the poetry of Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz, Sadequain’s vast body of work includes several large-scale public murals. Calligraphic modernism also manifests in Ismail Gulgee’s sweeping, gestural investigations of the Arabic and Persian scripts, built of thick layers of paint moving fluidly across the surface of his canvases. In Anwar Jalal Shemza’s abstracted paintings, Arabic calligraphy and traditional carpet motifs are combined with the influence of Swiss-German artist Paul Klee, while Ahmed Parvez’s paintings present a lyrical encounter of colour, space and form.

Nation Building

From the early 1950s, the new authorities of Pakistan were faced with the humanitarian challenges of population displacement. The city of Karachi, for example, saw its population double from 500,000 to 1 million in the year 1948. The government called on the expertise of many foreign architects, both European and American. French architect Michel Écochard, for instance, built the new University of Karachi and the Indus Valley Civilization Museum in Mohenjo-Daro.

It was the proposal of the urban planner Constantinos Doxiadis, supported by the American Ford Foundation, that General Mohammed Ayub Khan, elected President in 1958, chose for the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Its capital, initially Karachi, was moved to the north, at the foothills of the Himalaya, in a new city called Islamabad. Concentrating all the country's powers, the urban model adopted was a grid-like rationalization of the city's territory, broken down into hierarchical sectors.

In Lahore, Karachi and Dhaka, various architectural communities were organised beside the spread of American modernism such as the commissions by Richard Neutra and Edward Durrel Stone. In 1958, Medhi Ali Mirza federated and chaired the Institute of Architects Pakistan. The promising Louis Isadore Kahn's project for the Capitol in Islamabad never materialised. In Dhaka, Mazharul Islam took charge of the need to produce numerous public facilities, mainly for education. In the meantime, Kahn's parliament design was built and, long after 1971, embodied the image of the independence of Bangladesh.

New Languages

The period between modern and contemporary art in Pakistan begins in the late 1980s, with contemporary art taking firm root in the early 1990s. Such practices arose out of Pakistan’s rapidly changing socio-political and economic climate, with the struggle for democracy, migrations (both within its borders and outside), the growth of urban centres, the rise of the internet and of electronic and digital media, paired with global developments as well as the young country’s own global socio-economic and political positioning. A critical figure in this transformative period, it was Zahoor ul Akhlaq’s practice, treading the waters between the modern and contemporary space, that is hailed as the bridge between these modalities, as well as the greatest influence on some of Pakistan’s most prominent contemporary artists to follow, in whose work Zahoor’s grid became the key towards the exploration and deconstruction of space. On the other hand, an artist and a designer, Imran Mir was also deeply immersed in the investigation of the grid, his work moving between ideas of art and graphic design. His concerns however were based in Bauhaus principles; this influence is evident not only in his work as an artist, but also in his vast body of work as one of Pakistan’s leading graphic designers of his time. Meanwhile, Rasheed Araeen’s work would stands as exemplary in the formation of minimalist concerns in Pakistani art, particularly in the context of sculpture. Araeen’s oeuvre however speaks to a much larger set of concerns: based in London since the 1960s, Araeen was a deep critic of the western hegemonic system embedded within art institutions, and this is evident in many of his works which include video and performance, as well as his numerous writings.

Neo Miniature

In Pakistan, institutions have often come to play a pivotal role, not only in the development of modern and contemporary artistic practices, but also as spaces of innovation, discourse and activism. At the country’s oldest art school, the National College of Arts (NCA, Lahore), miniature painting has been taught for decades. However, during the 1980s and 1990s, a convergence of interests between the miniature painting master Bashir Ahmed and Zahoor ul Akhlaq, gives rise to a generation of neo-miniaturists who adapted and expanded this traditional format of painting into a contemporary dialogue. NCA graduate Shahzia Sikander, arguably the first to investigate and deconstruct the language of miniature painting on a formal level as well as according to her socio-political and personal concerns, defied any restriction to scale, but also to material and method, by equally practising drawing, printmaking, sculpture, video and animation. Hamra Abbas, Khadim Ali, Ali Kazim, Aisha Khalid, Imran Qureshi and Rashid Rana, equally explore extremely diverse forms, from painting and drawing to new media and installations, creating what became widely known internationally as a neo-miniature movement. These approaches challenging a traditional medium continue to develop in the practices of contemporary artists from Pakistan today.

Regionalism in Debate

Less than 40 years after independence and the successive partitions of the subcontinent, the functionalist urban model adopted in the 1950s was being called into question. Despite enabling the construction of numerous infrastructures in the country, cities such as Karachi and Lahore were growing exponentially, proving planning strategies inadequate to cope with demographic growth. The political pendulum swung radically with General Zia's seizure of power in 1977, profoundly transforming the country's cultural, religious and social structures and widening its divisions.

Against this backdrop, what signs of collective unity could architecture provide, and how could it reconcile the country's necessary integration into the global economy with the reconstruction of a shared social and cultural identity? The Aga Khan Foundation is the focal point of these debates, encouraging a “regionalist” approach whilst offering a high-profile overview of developments in architecture in Pakistan and the subcontinent.

In Karachi, Habib Fida Ali made no secret of his scepticism on narrow regionalism that risks identity-based withdrawal. Yasmeen Lari, on the strength of public commissions for housing and institutional buildings, saw the role of the architect in social and cultural development. Arif Hasan, for his part, radically renounced all private commissions in the mid-1980s to devote himself to political activism, helping to establish participatory programmes to rehabilitate dilapidated housing. In Lahore, Kamil Khan Mumtaz moved away from his modernist training to explore and rediscover traditional pre-colonial building techniques. Nayyar Ali Dada took an intermediate path, devoting himself to the construction of cultural, public and religious buildings.

Subjective Figurations

Over the decades, artists from Pakistan have created rich and nuanced narratives that address the politics of being, of self and of the milieu in which they have found themselves. Pakistan’s tumultuous politics have had a great impact on expressions of self, identity, autonomy and agency. However perhaps none impacted the sphere of art and culture as gravely at that of the decade long dictatorial regime of General Zia ul Haq from 1978 to 1988, when strict censorship policies were enforced, to which all cultural agents in the country, from across the disciplines of art, music, dance, theatre, cinema, etc., were forced to comply. It was also during this time that the Women’s Action Forum (WAF) led a protest march in Lahore against the discriminatory laws laid out in the Hudood Ordinance and Law of Evidence, where they were met with tear gas and a baton charge by the police. The legacy of the WAF persists in the Aurat March, which sees the active involvement of artists and cultural practitioners across Pakistan to date. While General Zia’s regime ended with his death in 1988, the impact of the wheels he set into motion are still felt in Pakistan today, with the difficulties of daily existence and identity politics still clearly apparent in the works of artists such as Anwar Saeed, Salima Hashmi, Salman Toor, Quddus Mirza and Farida Batool, amongst others.

Urban Vernacular

During the 1990s, a new artistic language began to develop, propounded by many of those affiliated with the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. Karachi Pop, as it was often called, emerged in the vast urban metropolis of Karachi, Pakistan’s teeming port city and its economic and financial capital, as an investigation of the city’s everyday urban visual and local culture. Here, Iftikhar and Elizabeth Dadi, and David Alesworth and Durriya Kazi began to explore the visualities of the cinematic image, the materials and aesthetics of the bazars where craftsmen painted trucks and cinema hoardings, and worked in metal, wood, chamak patti (reflective stickers) and pulsating neon lights; where religious and political posters plastered the walls, and an almost absurd array of kitschy objects were commonly available to all. Their work not only questioned but broke through the hierarchies of high art and low art, of the ordering system imposed between art, craft, and popular and folk culture. Importantly, their collaborative works saw not only a collaboration between the four artists, but also with those Dadi refers to as “urban artisans”. Addressing issues of authorship, participation and collaboration, these practices opened up a new urban language or aesthetic.

Politics of Land and Water

From colonial legacies to neo-colonial formations, Pakistan’s long and persistent form of division and partition forms a conceptual thread that cuts across the exhibition. In the heightened tumult of a post-9/11 world, cities in Pakistan have become highly securitised and militarised, with military grade barricades that proliferate, changing the face of the city and thus shaping the lives of those that occupy it. Politics, economics and globalisation have played a great part in the development of Pakistan’s contemporary art scene, where the accelerated speed of development and industry has over time had devastating effects on the environment, flora and fauna, and animal, marine, bird and human lives.

Encroaching cities continue to threaten the livelihoods of indigenous populations, pointing to the inherent brutality within the operations of power and development. Where indigenous people have always been stewards of the land, holding deep knowledge and wisdom, the situation is exacerbated by the impacts of climate change. This last section thus brings the exhibition full circle, ending precisely where it begins, with a focus on land, water and those that live on and alongside it, importantly coming to rest on issues of ecology and climate. The exhibition continues outdoors in the Palace courtyard with bamboo shelters that respond to the devastating floods that have struck Pakistan in recent years.

This ‘ending’ thus also signals an extension of questions, dialogues and issues that bring to the fore some of the core concerns of artistic and cultural practitioners from Pakistan, but also open pathways of intersection, of shared ideas and values, and of potential collaboration and community that we all seek to foster and safeguard in the world we find ourselves in today.

Courtyard Works

Outdoor and indoor installations, as well as a film and video programme, continue the exhibition in the courtyard of the Palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani, which sits at the heart of the Museum. Architect Yasmeen Lari and the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan present three examples of log-system bamboo shelters developed as emergency open-source housing for flood victims. The fabric covering one of these shelters is designed by textile expert Noorjehan Bilgrami. A Community Centre type structure by the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan houses the reenactment of the collective Karachi LaJamia’s project Hamare Siyal Rishte (Our Watery Relations) focusing on the environmental crisis in the province of Sindh as a learning platform. Mariah Lookman has created a new film installation titled Behrupiya as a tribute to found archival documentary footage on the artist Sadequain, with a script written in collaboration with novelist H. M. Naqvi. Amin Gulgee reimagines a Mughal garden in a sculptural installation, Hamra Abbas adapts historic stone inlay techniques in Flowers. Gardens of Paradise, Shahzia Sikander's animation Disruption as Rapture brings to life an 18th century manuscript. Omer Wasim presents a newly commissioned installation In Shadows of the Sun, including drawings, a video, sculptures and texts. Sustainability and ecologies are at the heart of many of these contemporary projects. 

Manzar Video Programme

Screened in the majlis of the Palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani

Artists: Hamra Abbas | Roohi Ahmed |Madiha Aijaz | Sophia Balagamwala | Farida Batool | Yaminay N. Chaudhri | Aisha Abid Hussain | Shalalae Jamil | Ayesha Jatoi |Ayaz Jokhio |Mahbub Jokhio | Aaejay Kardar | Basir Mahmood | Asma Mundrawala | Adeela Suleman | Abdullah M. I. Syed | Sadia Salim | Omer Wasim & Saira Sheikh

The video programme offers a glimpse of the diverse concerns, approaches and methodologies employed by artists from Pakistan working in the medium of video, digital production and animation. Divided into two broad themes titled ‘Being and Belonging’ and ‘Living Landscapes’, these works extend the conversations set out in the galleries: ideas of the personal and the political, of meaning, form and material explorations, of histories, culture and society, of the ordinary and the extraordinary, and of the deeply complex and layered narratives.

In Pakistan, the development of video art emerges through a very different trajectory than the linear history of the west. Here, we see the influence of a rich visual culture and landscape, of the cinematic languages of Lollywood and Bollywood, of the impact of mass and social media, and the upsurge of satellite TV channels and internet connectivity across the country. Some of the artists here work primarily with lens-based mediums; for others video offers the tools to extend a larger practice and language.

The programme runs daily through the run of the exhibition.

Some artworks contain imagery and themes that may be sensitive or unsettling to some viewers. Viewer discretion is advised.

All images courtesy of the artist unless otherwise mentioned.

Living Landscapes

Total length: 84 min approximately

Aaejay Kardar with Mervyn Marshall (dir.)
(Aaejay Kardar: Lahore, British India, 1926 – London, UK, 2002). Zainul Abedin. Part IV of the documentary series Symphonies in Expression, 1966. Script by Faiz Ahmed Faiz about the artist Zainul Abedin. Commissioned by Burmah-Shell Pakistan, 6 min. Courtesy of Mariah Lookman

Sophia Balagamwala
(Karachi, Pakistan, 1987 – works in Karachi, Pakistan). Mappings, 2024, Animation, 3 min.

Mahbub Jokhio
(Mahrabpur, Pakistan, 1992 – works in Lahore) A line that remains…, 2023, Single channel video, 6 min 45 sec.

Yaminay Chaudhri
(Karachi, Pakistan, 1971 – works in Yale, USA). Untitled, 2015, Video, 7 min.

Sadia Salim
(Hyderabad, Pakistan, 1973 – works in Karachi, Pakistan). Travel Advisory Part II, 2011–2013, Video, 10 min 51 sec.

Sophia Balagamwala
(Karachi, Pakistan, 1987 – works in Karachi, Pakistan). Frog Rain, 2024, Animation, 1 min

Shalalae Jamil
(1978 Karachi, Pakistan – works in Karachi, Pakistan). The Great Divorce, 2010, Video, 6 min 10 sec.

Yaminay Chaudhri
(Karachi, Pakistan, 1971 – works in Yale, USA). There was nothing / kuch bhi naheen tha, 2017, Video, 14 min 15 sec.

Madiha Aijaz
(Multan, Pakistan, 1981 – Karachi, Pakistan, 2019). Memorial for the lost pages, 2018. Video, 3 min 22 sec. Courtesy of Uneza and Ramsha Aijaz

Asma Mundrawala
(Karachi, Pakistan, 1965 – works in Karachi, Pakistan). Love Story, 2008, Video, 1 min

Omer Wasim & Saira Sheikh
(Karachi, Pakistan, 1988 – works in New Haven, USA) & (Karachi, Pakistan, 1975 – Karachi, Pakistan, 2017). MVI_1970 (originally titled Capital: Critique of Political Economy, after Marx), 2016, HD Video, 12 min.

Being and Belonging

Total length: approximately 83 min

Ayaz Jokhio
(Mehrabpur, Pakistan, 1978 – works in Lahore). Moon mein aaheen toon (You are in me), 2008, Animation, 1 min 33 sec

Adeela Suleman
(Karachi, Pakistan, 1970 – works in Karachi, Pakistan). Suffer, 2002, Video, 7 min.

Aisha Abid Hussain
(Peshawar, Pakistan, 1980 – works in Lahore, Pakistan). At my father’s house, 2012, Video, 7 min 37 sec.

Roohi Ahmed
(Karachi, Pakistan, 1966 – works in Raleigh, USA). Sew and Sow, 2015, Video, 23 min.

Ayesha Jatoi
(Islamabad, Pakistan, 1979 – works in Lahore, Pakistan). Clothesline, 2006, Video, 4 min.

Farida Batool
(Lahore, Pakistan, 1970 – works in Lahore, Pakistan). Marching Masculinities, 2016, Video, 1 min 9 sec.

Sophia Balagamwala
(Karachi, Pakistan, 1987 – works in Karachi, Pakistan). Whereabouts Unknown / Ata Pata Maloom Nahin, 2021, Animation, 1 min 40 sec.

Abdullah M. I. Syed
(Karachi, Pakistan, 1974 – works in Sydney, Australia). Bucking, 2011, Video, 9 min 3 sec.

Hamra Abbas
(Kuwait City, Kuwait, 1976 – works in Lahore, Pakistan). Text Edit, 2011, Video, 4 min 36 sec.

Basir Mahmood
(Lahore, Pakistan, 1985 – works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands). Thank You For Coming, 2013, Video, 6 min 24 sec.

Madiha Aijaz
(Multan, Pakistan, 1981 – Karachi, Pakistan, 2019). Brown Sahab and the Pomeranian, 2017, Video, 1 min 50 sec. These Silences Are All the Words, 2018, Video, 14 min 50 sec. Courtesy of Uneza and Ramsha Aijaz