Amin Gulgee at Open20
Amin Gulgee talks about the Karachi Biennale 2017 at Open20
View: Amin Gulgee at Open20
City of dreams and nightmares
KARACHI: The first Karachi Biennale was formally inaugurated at the NJV School on Saturday evening. Artists and art lovers started to gather at the venue at the time mentioned on the invite (5pm) and kept pouring in even when the speeches were about to end. Thankfully, the speeches were short.
CEO of KB 17 Niilofur Farrukh said it was a dream that her team had dreamt for a long time. The biennale was Pakistan’s largest contemporary art event in which the “stars are artists”. A large population of the country comprised the youth, and through a collective occasion [KB] it could have a positive memory for them.
Chief curator of KB 17 Amin Gulgee, who was greeted with a loud cheer from a certain section of the audience the moment his name was announced, said Karachi was a maddening city. He raised the question why arrange such an event in a city that had seen so much bloodshed, then answered by recalling the year 1971 when the late Ali Imam opened the first gallery in Karachi where artists and art buffs gathered around Imam and talked about their work, making Karachi the hub of contemporary art. He hoped that his team’s effort would create awareness and soon the city would have a museum [for the public]. He added the theme of KB 17 ‘witness’ had struck a nerve, and it’s time we created our own narrative. He rounded off his speech by welcoming the guests to the “city of dreams and nightmares”.
First Karachi Biennale begins
Bushra Husain informed the audience about the Mahvash and Jahangir Siddiqui Foundation Juried Art Prize and about those who were in the jury. She invited Savita Apte to announce the award, which Ms Apte did. The award went to Ali Kazim.
Critic Marjorie Husain was the chief guest on the occasion. She said she had been looking forward to KB 17 for a long time. The event had taken her back to the days when she first arrived in Pakistan when there were places like the Arts Council and the PACC where artists could share their work, and they lived like a family. She hoped that everyone would come and see the works put up at the biennale.
Imran Sheikh, Masuma Halai and Atika Malik also spoke.
After the speeches, the invitees went around the school premises to see the artworks on display. There was a decent variety on view, ranging from performance art to video installations. It would be unfair not to mention Syed Safdar Ali’s installation made with crutches. The artist has created a matrix, or a matrix-like big piece that no one could miss. The use of crutches as the medium is indicative of an existence with limited freedom.
The Karachi Biennale 2017 will conclude on Nov 5.
Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2017
Source: dawn.com
Revoltella: Tesa 105, Arsenale di Venezia
Il 12 maggio alle ore 17.30, in contemporanea con altri Paesi del mondo, si è svolta la performance di Sarah Revoltella dal titolo “Io Combatto”
Sette monitor con prove in corso di connessione, le immagini che vanno e vengono, dietro una cabina di regia che comunica con piccoli gruppi di artisti e operatori sparsi nel mondo.qui alla Tesa 105 dell’Arsenale di Venezia c’è la sede principale di un’azione che sta per accadere anche in altre parti nel mondo. Le altre locations sono un teatro d’avanguardia nella banlieu di Parigi, il top roof di un grattacielo a New York, una galleria a Istanbul, la terrazza di una casa privata a Karachi, un museo a Mosca. Tutti pronti a realizzare la performance Io Combatto insieme a Sarah Revoltella, che porta avanti questo progetto sul disarmo e su una cultura di trasformazione radicale di mentalità e pratica a partire dalla società civile. Ora questa performance diventa un gesto condiviso e diffuso, una rete di azioni in giro per il mondo che sarà un forte messaggio simbolico, nel cuore della Biennale di Venezia, dimensione altrettanto simbolica dell’arte internazionale che diventa luogo e strumento allo stesso tempo. insieme il sostengo della Fondazione Pistoletto in forma del Terzo Paradiso, casa ideale per quel sogno a cui Pistoletto continua a dare forma di una rivoluzione sociale profonda attraverso l’arte. Le armi vengono disposte a Venezia come negli altri luoghi.
Non tutti i collegamenti funzionano ancora bene ma si va avanti. Si comincia. Sarah imbraccia la prima arma e ne descrive la potenza offensiva sul corpo umano e sull’ambiente, così per quella successiva, una via l’altra. Alla sua voce si sovrappongono quelle degli altri performer, i loro gesti ai suoi, un coro di lingue e di figure che si fondono in un unico messaggio. l’attenzione e l’emozione sono forti tra il pubblico, in rigoroso silenzio, appeso alle parole e ai movimenti di Sarah, con gli occhi che saltellano da un monitor all’altro in giro per i mondo. Sembra incredibile aver messo in piedi questo progetto, un anno e mezzo di lavoro costruito pezzo per pezzo, senza budget, in una cordata di persone che, con ruoli e apporti diversi, hanno consolidato Io Combatto per passione e fiducia in u futuro diverso, e perché credono davvero che l’arte possa dove altre forze e pensieri non sono riusciti. Sarah finisce, riparte dall’inizio e inizia a gettare a terra le armi in ceramica, che al contatto con il suolo si frantumano. È un’eco di rotture e conflagra insieme, ognuno dei performer interpreta a modo suo l’azione, come era l’accordo: fare proprio il gesto e dargli un’anima. Alla fine si raccolgono i frammenti neri, in un sacco di juta che viene trasportato all’aperto in un giardino dietro alla Tesa 105.
Lì porzioni di pistole, fucili, mitra vengono piantate in quello che sembra un giardino zen di rinascita e trasformazione realmente possibile. Ha una sua bellezza infatti, non mostra più l’orrore della violenza e della morte inutile che incarnava prima. l’emozione è ancora più forte, Sarah è stremata e il pensiero va agli altri performer che stanno piantando altrove i loro frammenti. Scatta un applauso che è un abbraccio, si citano i nomi di tutti (*), che sono tanti, tantissimi, da chi ha cotto le armi a chi ha sostenuto le spedizioni delle cassi in giro per il mondo. Grazie a ciascuno e a tutti insieme questo è potuto accadere. Tutto è andato bene, anche se l’esperienza di questo lungo processo realizzativo ha insegnato molto e ha lasciato anche delle amarezze. Per esempio l’impossibilità di fare partecipare Israele e Palestina, perché, pur nella eterogeneità di gruppo e figure diverse contattate, alla fine il punto era che ‘o ci siamo noi o ci sono loro’. E allora meglio nessuno, non c’è scelta, solo tutti insieme ha senso ed è la direzione. Oppure il pasticcio alla dogana di Istanbul, che di fatto non ha sdoganato la cassa con le armi\opera, tra ombre e ambiguità e burocrazie bizantine, obbligando il performer a fare l’azione con le fotocopie a colori delle armi. Ma tutto ha funzionato benissimo comunque, con l’intelligenza e l’ironia che rimedia e risolve. Ora il progetto deve andare avanti.
MOSCA : Hermes Zaigott – performer Gribuk Yanina – Pr project manager Kirill Shakhnovich – technical director of the project Alexander Tikhonov – representative of the location location – MMOMA.
ISTANBUL : Burçak Konukman – performer Giorgio Caione – Pr project manager and technical director of the project location – galleria Mixer. In collaboration with Billur Tansel – Open diyalog İstanbul
NEW YORK : Sean Donovan – performer Veronica Santi – Pr Project Manager and technical director of the project location – All Favor Productions
KARACHI : Sara Pagganwala – performer Carlotta Scarpa – Pr Project Manager and technical director of the project Humayun Memon – assistant curator location – All Favor Productions. In collaboration with Karachi Biennale 2017 (Paolo De Grandis – International Curator Amin Gulgee – Chief Curator).
PARIGI : Colette Nucci – performer Elena Mazzarino – Pr project manager and technical director of the project location – Théâtre 13/Seine. Si ringrazia il Théâtre 13, Parigi
Olga Gambari – curatrice del progetto
Credit fotografici Ricky Monti.
Source: lastampa.it
Curtain Raised On First-Ever Karachi Biennale
Watch Geo TV Coverage: View
An event introducing the theme, objectives and program of the upcoming Biennale took place at Frere Hall last evening. Joining the over 100 cities all around the globe, the coastal city of Karachi is to host its very own first edition which starting this October promises the metropolis a museum quality art experience once every two years at least.
Organised by a group of artists, art critics, educators, curators and enthusiasts, the Karachi Biennale Trust raised the curtain on the project they have been working on for over a year.
Speaking about the exhibitions that are to be held all over the city for public to view without any fee the managing trustee Nilofur Farrukh says biennale is an art showcase specific to the city and hence curated accordingly.
The Karachi Biennale, in harmony with the structure and format followed all around the world, aims to cater to a wider public audience, explains the reputed art critic who is also a curator.
A first of its kind initiative, the upcoming event aspires to create a collective experience for a large part of the city’s population offering them a rare opportunity to see art worthy of exclusive showcase in a prestigious gallery or museum, she concludes.
The chief curator of the Karachi Biennale Amin Gulgee, who has invited around 80 national and 40 international artists to participate, says nine beautiful locations have been chosen to connect art with the city and its people through the theme of ‘Witness’. Showcasing a diversity of media that reflects the contemporary art of our times, Amin promises it will be a rocking experience for Karachiites.
Open to public and free of charge the first Karachi Biennale opening in October this year, will continue for two weeks and is to be held every two years after that.
Source: geo.tv
Paolo De Grandis – Through the Looking Glass
Setting up art shows globally for the past 40 years, Paolo De Grandis was recently in Karachi where MAG had a candid chat with him. Excerpts:
Since 1995 I have organised 118 exhibitions in the Venice Biennale, 54 national participations and 64 collateral events presenting the first official participation of many countries like Andorra, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Jamaica, Morocco, Principality of Monaco, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Singapore, Ecuador (with an independent Pavilion, 2015) and the collateral participations of Taiwan, Hong Kong, US Virgin Islands and Macau.
One of the columns of the State Bank Museum is where the afternoon sun shone with all its intensity as the Venetian faced the lens. As traffic blared, a mundane scene around Karachi’s downtown, MAG got a chance to chat with Paolo De Grandis or ‘Paolo the Great’ as the Italian likes to translate his surname in English.
“I come from a family of architects,” shares the youngest of five brothers. “My dad wanted me to be an architect too, but I did not like technical things,” says the ‘free brain’. “Secretly I would go to the Art Academy of Venice (Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia), while I was enrolled in an architectural school; I was very bad there, but was a top student in Academia,” De Grandis talks about his school days. “I didn’t have any documents and was enrolled in the school without being recognised as a student,” he says shedding light on his professor who got him registered. “My professor was Emilio Vedova, one of the world’s biggest artists,” he recalls the revolutionary Italian painter.
As a train nearby chugs down the track, it seems the steam of the locomotive, struck a chord with the dreamer. “The real Paolo is a young dreamer,” he starts off, “when he was 12 years old, he was leaving a biennale in an afternoon in August jumping on a wall and getting inside another world,” the free and lonely soul shares who hopped on a sea cruise in his adolescent days from a biennale.
Contemporary art can live anywhere; it depends on the intelligence of artists and the strength of their piece
“When I was 12, I spoke just a little bit of English,” De Grandis brings to mind the day when he “was walking around the city and saw many people speaking different languages.”
It was in in the late 1970s that De Grandis moved to Florida with his bag of dreams. “My dream was very simple – to (put up) the biggest exhibition in the world,” recalls the man in the pinstripe suit whose life revolves around the sphere of creativity.
De Grandis’ job according to him takes him places. “When I was 20 to 30, I was in the U.S.; from 30 to 40 I was in Europe, and 40 onwards I have been travelling around Asia, from Japan to Vietnam,” the avid traveller puts across.
It is the first time De Grandis has visited Karachi, and the one thing that struck him with gloom “is the pollution of the sea. Since I come from Venice, the sight of a dirty sea makes me sad,” the man from the Floating City laments, hoping Karachi’s sea is cleaned someday.
This creator has an aversion for the word curator. “I started to curate shows when the word curator didn’t exist,” he marks out. For all those who want to know what he does, hear him out: “I find a nice wall and use a hammer and nail, and with artists I hang the work and try to (display) the right way,” says the ‘piece of art’. What he is keen on is “to have a nice opening (of the exhibition). I like to check the food before people can eat it… so I’m not a curator, but a piece of art,” says the melancholic individual. “I’m a melancholic person,” De Grandis sheds light on his own self. He is one who is not a guest of his own show. “I build up the exhibition,” he talks about his ventures, “I never go to see the ongoing exhibition rather think about the next one and not the last one,” De Grandis reveals, who has curated 25 exhibitions this year alone.
The quality of Karachi’s first ever biennale is what De Grandis found to be ‘very good’. “It’s a clean biennale with a good quality of artists; here you have reality, you have art,” says the highly positive De Grandis who hails inspiration from himself. “I love myself and like to agree with myself often,” says the loner who loves to stay with himself.
I trust that my collaboration with Pakistan can continue in the future and my aim is to present the first official Pakistan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of 2019
De Grandis has a list of his most loved people and on that list is a name prominent in the local art circle. “For me Amin Gulgee is one of the 10 people I love in this world. Amin is energy for me and I see him in a mirror,” and he flashes light on 20 years ago sharing, “Amin helped me with my first OPEN,” De Grandis talks about OPEN International Exhibition of Sculptures and Installations where artists from all over the world interact in outdoor spaces of Venice. And De Grandis hopes that in the time to come, his collaboration continues with Pakistan. “I trust that my collaboration with Pakistan can continue in the future and my aim is to present the first official Pakistan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of 2019.”
Being the international guest curator for the Karachi Biennale, De Grandis received photographs of the locations for the Biennale. “The connection between the space and the artwork is very important,” he tells me, pointing out his work ethics sharing an example from the Venice Biennale where he “invented an extra pavilion; we used a historical building, for instance a church where a magnificent painting of a big (art) maestro from 100 years ago was placed in a very modern and interactive (setting).”
According to the soul who breathes and lives art, “Contemporary art can live anywhere; it depends on the intelligence of artists and the strength of their piece,” he remarks.
You may be wondering what his favourite piece of art is. “It’s the mirror which I see every day.” As for art, and how important it is, De Grandis doesn’t use words, instead he points to the focal point from where blood is pumped; the heart is equivalent to art for this man who lives in a creative cluster.
Source: magtheweekly.com
Curtain Raised On First-Ever Karachi Biennale
An event introducing the theme, objectives and program of the upcoming Biennale took place at Frere Hall last evening. Joining the over 100 cities all around the globe, the coastal city of Karachi is to host its very own first edition which starting this October promises the metropolis a museum quality art experience once every two years at least.
Organised by a group of artists, art critics, educators, curators and enthusiasts, the Karachi Biennale Trust raised the curtain on the project they have been working on for over a year.
Speaking about the exhibitions that are to be held all over the city for public to view without any fee the managing trustee Nilofur Farrukh says biennale is an art showcase specific to the city and hence curated accordingly.
The Karachi Biennale, in harmony with the structure and format followed all around the world, aims to cater to a wider public audience, explains the reputed art critic who is also a curator.
A first of its kind initiative, the upcoming event aspires to create a collective experience for a large part of the city’s population offering them a rare opportunity to see art worthy of exclusive showcase in a prestigious gallery or museum, she concludes.
The chief curator of the Karachi Biennale Amin Gulgee, who has invited around 80 national and 40 international artists to participate, says nine beautiful locations have been chosen to connect art with the city and its people through the theme of ‘Witness’. Showcasing a diversity of media that reflects the contemporary art of our times, Amin promises it will be a rocking experience for Karachiites.
Open to public and free of charge the first Karachi Biennale opening in October this year, will continue for two weeks and is to be held every two years after that.
Source: Geo.tv
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