November 01, 2010 - March 29, 2011
The Rising Tide: New Directions in Art from Pakistan
Mohatta Palace Museum entered a new era of exhibitions in 2009. While exhibitions on Sadequain and Jamil Naqsh had demonstrated the important modernist tradition of artists, The Rising Tide curated by the artist, Naiza Khan, opened a new chapter in exhibition display, as the first of its kind to bring the work of over 40 contemporary artists to a wider public.
The exhibition was a crucial perspective on how contemporary art has progressed in the country over the last two decades. The traditional genres of painting, sculpture, printmaking and photography were augmented by works that challenged these boundaries.
Rather than following a linear path, the exhibition was conceived through a discursive lens examining diverse practices taking root in Pakistan by breaking away from past practices and responding to new challenges. As the curator noted in the catalogue, countries strongly rooted in traditional cultures, iconographies and values are rapidly shifting. In this spirit a diverse constellation of forty-two practitioners was selected that included both individuals and collectives who had been influential in the rapid rise of contemporary art in Pakistan.
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Works ranged from Durriya Kazi and David Alesworth’s groundbreaking Very Very Sweet Medina, an installation illustrating the notion of aspirational homes, through a vernacular display drawn from the newly emerging Pop Art movement in Karachi in the 1990s. The urban, which has rapidly become a centre of Pakistani life over the last few decades, has provided a key theme for many artists including the disparate practices of Farida Batool, Roohi Ahmed, Mauj Media Collective and Asim Butt amongst others. A number of artists touched upon the role of media, state propaganda and popular visual culture in Pakistani society, that included Imran Channa, Iftikhar Dadi, Elizabeth Dadi and Ahmed Ali Manganhar. The Neo-miniature movement, now a globally recognized art form emerging from Pakistan, was also well represented through Imran Qureshi, Aisha Khalid and Nusra Latif Qureshi amongst others.
The exhibition was reviewed globally in eminent publications such as The New York Times, the Economist and The Guardian of London.
The Rising Tide marked the end of the first decade of Mohatta’s wide ranging exhibitions – it was the first time the museum had dealt with the realm of the contemporary and it was very well received.
A catalogue is available at the Museum shop.
