Volume 1, Issue 1 (January 2006)

Essays

From Temple of the Muses to the Bazaar of Story Tellers
Museum and the City
by Gulzar Haider
What might have started as a celebration of scientific discovery and a desire to preserve civilizational inheritance or loot in the 19th century got interwoven in the 20th century with pursuits of national identity, affirmation of cultural uniqueness, recovery of ethnic pride and even religious-imperial memory. The museum as an institution and a building has become a medium of some affirmative agenda, if not a polemic, and its contents are often feeble, sometimes a blatantly artificial attempt at its own justification.

The Rebirth of Tollington Market as a Museum
by Samina Shah
In living memory, the building often referred to as ‘Tollington’, has been a provision market. This edifice stands at the intersection of two axes, and the north to south alignment is from the old city of Lahore and the British cantonment, and the east to west is the old and new Anarkali bazaar. Seen in the context of the colonial British policy for arts and industry, the Tollington building was erected in 1864to house an exhibition of ‘Indian Crafts’- an event that was immensely popular that continued for a period of nine months.

Strategies of Opening and Openness in Lithuanian Museology
by Elona Lubyte
The era of change in our museums started with the separation. In the Soviet period, all objects stored in the museum belonged to the museum fund of the USSR.

Citizen-Art-Museum: An Unexplored Connection
by Niilofur Farrukh
A lack of awareness, disinterest or disconnect with the needs of the community keeps Pakistan’s archeological museums with their priceless core of artifacts from adopting a strategy that projects an indigenous point of view with the help of an appealing display and a proactive outreach program. In the West, where the Museum’s state grant is often linked to the popularity of the institutions, it has no choice but to design programs that prioritizes the interest of the community.

Weaving Stories of Solidarity: Reflections on Children’s Museums as Activist Organizations
by M. Zulifqar Ali
All educational theories are constructed on a theory of knowledge that determines the answers to key educational decisions such as what is to be taught, how, to whom and why. What a society learns to respect and value is a product of the education and theory of knowledge it explicitly or implicitly accepts. It is therefore critical for museums to define the epistemology that drives them.

Art Global

“Where is Contemporary Islamic Art in the Arab World?”
by Dr Wijdan Ali
In the art and architecture of a traditional Islamic society, the principles of a particular tradition inspire man’s creative energies and integrate all of society into a whole and complete entity. In his endeavor to worship God, the Muslim creates an object that combines beauty and functionality according to a traditional archetype, with a synthesis of materials and shapes, for the sole purpose of finding an insight into the nature of God and of man’s affinity to Him.

Anticipating a New Direction – The 51st Venice Art Biennial
by Simone Wille
With its 110 years experience, the oldest and most prestigious art exhibition in the world is showing signs of a re-orientation. After years of permanent expansion and universalizing trends, the 51st Biennial appears to want to make peace with these ideas and contemplate a new direction.

A Conversation with Maysaloun Faraj
by Zehra Zaidi
Maysaloun Faraj is without doubt one of the central figures in Iraqi art today. A prominent artist and ceramist, along with her husband - the visionary architect
Ali Mousavi - and a few other kindred spirits, she has put Iraqi art on the map.

Marking Emergence of Regional Modernism: A Perspective on the Madras
Art Movement
by Ashrafi S. Bhagat
In the south, centered at Madras (present Chennai, India), with its locus at the colonial
Government College of Arts and Crafts - there emerged The Madras Art Movement in the early 1960s. The Madras group was a heterogeneous constellation of artists who banded together under the authoritarian leadership of K.C.S. Paniker (1911-1977).

The Singular Journey: South Asian Visual Art in Britain
by John Holt and Laura Turney
In many ways this essay aims to provide a snapshot or a taste of ‘South Asian’ art in Britain which is conceptually at odds with some of the debates that it will introduce to you, namely, the tension between recognizing the contributions and achievements of South Asian artists whilst simultaneously critiquing the marginalization and exclusion of such artists from what we may call ‘the mainstream’.

Contact: Toronto’s Photo Fest
by Marie Noelle Chatelain
CONTACT 2005 with the theme Questioning Truth in Photography was the ninth edition. It exhibited the work of 400 artists at 155 venues throughout Toronto, Canada.

Art Conservation

Art Conservation and Restoration
by The NuktaArt Team
Paintings have a tendency not to age gracefully. In coastal cities signs of age are aggravated by humidity, and precious works quickly get discolored and disfigured.
Artist and Conservator Shakil Siddiqi answers the queries of collectors.

Art Collector

NuktaArt Visits Tasneem Jatoi
by The NuktaArt Team
NuktaArt visited Tasneem Jatoi’s eclectic collection that spans more than 30 years of Pakistani art. The collector’s interest in art is supplemented with carefully filed documentation of reviews (even invitation cards), that has made her follow the progress of the careers of artists in her collection.

Architecture

Looking Beyond the Concept - The Living City as a Museum
by Asiya Sadiq
Since cities are usually seen as artifacts of historic value, the contemporary living city is often ignored by individuals and institutions as a museum and archive of case studies for understanding the living and built heritage, ecology, art, sociology, culture, anthropology and spatial form; which we all use, produce, determine and in turn get determined by.

Book Review

Sharjah Biennial 7 – Belonging
by Amra Ali
Into its 7th year, the Sharjah Biennial 2005, in which the work of 70 artists from approximately 30 countries converged to address issues around the theme of ‘Belonging’, comes with an impressive catalogue of 500 plus color pages.

Nukta-e-Nazar

NuktaArt in Conversation with Zarina Hashmi
by The NuktaArt Team
On a visit to Karachi, New York-based artist Zarina Hashmi found time to speak to NuktaArt on issues of concern related to perceptions of the visual arts in Pakistan and the implications of emerging forces that seem to influence and shape the making of art in the region.

Art @ Nukta

The Journey of Art since 1947 to 2005 - reviewed by Hurriya Kazmi
A retrospective show curated by Quddus Mirza and Tanya Sani at Alhamra Arts Gallery, Lahore, Pakistan

Redefining Regionalism- IAPEX 2005 : – reviewed by Mukhtar Husain
An International Architectural Conference held in Karachi, Pakistan

Aisha Khalid & Imran Qureshi at Chawkandi Art – reviewed by Amra Ali
Two person show at Chawkandi Art, Karachi, Pakistan

The Artist of Raku Graves – reviewed by Rumana Husain
Workshop in France attended by Pakistani ceramist Arji Karim

Riffat Alvi – reviewed by Sheherbano Hussain
Solo Exhibition at Canvas Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan

The Wheel and the Whorls of Time, Samaya Chakra
Review by Sangeeta Thapa

Arounna’s Multiples at The Distillery, Toronto
Review by Niilofur Farrukh

Photo Essay

Barefoot in Sri Lanka:
Photo essay based on two portfolios: A festival near Colombo and post Tsunami, 2004
Photographs by Dominic Sansoni