Emerging Talent 2009

Amra Ali 

The collective energy of graduates from art colleges across Pakistan comes together each year at the Emerging Talent show at the VM Gallery in Karachi.  The brainchild of its director Riffat Alvi, this show continues to engage the polarity that exists between institutions within Karachi, and extends a space of inclusivity to institutions located on the outskirts of the dominant discourse within Pakistan. The diversity of exposure of work from the Punjab University, Multan College of Art and the Islamia University of Bahawalpur in being shown with more prominent institutes such as the National College of Art, Lahore and the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi, reinforces the need and potential of exchange and communication between these institutes.  Riffat’s initiative is also important because the work is seen as a collective. Through the proximity of space, the works already begin to speak to each other.

The inclusion from Karachi’s oldest art institute, the Karachi School of Art, the Central Institute of Arts and Crafts and the Visual Studies Department at Karachi University further provides a neutral space for different sensibilities and levels of art practice. Students within Karachi’s art schools remain insulated within their respective spaces of comfort (or discomfort), protected by boundaries of disconnect with the other. Perhaps, the politics within institutions binds students from extending themselves to other institutes and the art community, resulting in a fragmented relationship to its art community and institutes. Sadly, the voices from Balochistan and Jamshoro, Sindh, are silent, despite calls from the curator for participation. The BNU in Lahore and Hunerkada in Islamabad are also missing. 

Considering that this is a part of the students’ thesis, one expected to see more risks being taken, where the student pushes the confines of convention, or addresses and extends the possibility of medium.  The majority of work that is two dimensional painting and printmaking, with negligible work in 3D, suggests a strong conventional approach to material and remains well within the box.  There is a directional change away from Miniature and ceramics remains on the periphery.  Why has multimedia not entered this space and how are art colleges reacting to technology as a medium in studio and theory classes. 

Two large canvases in oil by Madiha Arif from the NCA and other large works also on canvas, by Aisha Gul from the KSA provide a visual anchor for the show.  It is interesting to see two different narratives, both of which emerge out of a relationship to their social context. Madiha addresses ways that sexual harassment takes place in socially acceptable ways in Pakistani society. Pleasure (6 ft x 7ft) is a composition of a ‘tailor master’ taking the measurements of his female client’s bust. ‘Hidden Lust’ is a composition in which a Quran-teacher, the maulvi sahib, who is a part of every household, is portrayed through his central placement. Depth is created by the curtain that separates the ‘teacher’ from his student. A compositional device such as the curtain also acts as a symbolic element, allowing a layered reading to the work. Purdah which is curtain in Urdu implies separation, segregation, something that is concealed. The conceptual strength of the work does not overshadow the weak use of paint and unresolved areas.  Teething problems like this are not expected to be carried to a student’s final year. 

Aisha Gul’s garish palette is garish and unrestrained in the use of vermilions and oranges, with yellow undertones contrasting strong blacks.  The red stiletto or a tiger print heel is enlarged to the full canvas size like an architectural monument. A stereotypical male figure, much smaller in size, is placed at the foot of each shoe, lamenting like a lost lover. The linear narrative is built on clichés, a typical example of a student who has not looked outside of herself to build upon her thesis synopsis.  Asad Ali Changezi, also from the KSA, though technically strong, uses the image of a chair in a simi lar melodramatic manner.  

 As one enters the gallery, one is confronted by one of the red heels in 3D.  One could discard Aisha’s shoe sculpture and canvases as mere kitsch, but the work intervenes with the gallery space and other work, creating an imbalance of aesthetics and content. This is possibly the strongest entry in this show because it forces the viewer to react to its aesthetics of unease. No matter how naïve the work may appear, the artist speaks from a position from inside the framework that she critiques. It is unclear if she is in awe of the very synthetic and consumerist culture that her subject represents.  It has been an important curatorial selection, to be able to recognize the diversity of viewpoint; no matter what direction it is headed.  The process of discussion can begin from here. 

Other works such as Zuban-e-khalq by Shoaib Mehmood from the Fine Arts Department, University of Punjab, Roman English (Urdu written in English writing) juxtaposed with Urdu text, presents another level of interaction of the literary and the visual. Fasiha Batool from the Karachi University uses Kashful Mahjub (Unveiling the Veiled), a literary source of Sufism, to combine text and image (presented in Plexiglas cases).  These are two of the very few works that move towards crossing boundaries, where references are drawn from outside ‘art’ such as literature, reflecting  the interdisciplinary attitude of the respective art departments.   

A stronger national representation can be ensured if art institutes commit to this show in providing one outstanding entry each year. Very often thesis work is ‘booked’ and ready for the market before the student has even stepped out of college.  Dialogue and critique can become the focus, instead of the commercial lure that becomes a liability and may give a false sense of achievement to the student-artist.