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Category: Curatorial
Home / A Collective Dream: One Night Stand/Coup d’un soir /
One Night Stand - Coup d’un soir - Amin Gulgee
A Collective Dream: One Night Stand/Coup d’un soir, A Collective Dream: One Night Stand/Coup d’un soir, Curatorial, Paris, Performance

A Collective Dream: One Night Stand/Coup d’un soir by John McCarry

  • Posted By Amin Gulgee
  • on May 13,2019

On May 13, 2019, Amin Gulgee curated an exhibition of performance art featuring 32 international artists at the Cité internationale des arts in the Marais district of Paris. This was part of his two-month residency at the venerable art institution, established in 1965, with one campus in the Marais and the other in Montmartre. Some of the artists were fellow residents at the Cité internationale des arts, while others were people Amin had met during his regular visits to Paris over the past decade.

Amin, of course, is no stranger to performance art. Over the past two decades, he has presented his own performance works in Karachi, Lahore, Dubai, Kula Lumpur, Nagoya, London and Rome. He has also curated and co-curated performance at his own noncommercial space in Karachi and included a strong performance element in the Karachi Biennale 2017, of which he was Chief Curator as well as in “The Quantuam City: Territory/Space/Place,” which he co-curated with Zarmeene Shah and Sara Pagganwala for the International Public Art Festival in Karachi in March 2019.

A Collective Dream - One Night Stand - Coup d’un soirAida - Amin Gulgee and Nosrat

Amin’s group exhibition of performance in Paris was his first major curatorial effort outside of Pakistan. Amin titled the exhibition “One Night Stand/Coup d’un Soir” in a nod to “Riwhyti: One Night Stand,” which he had curated at his own gallery in 2013, in which over 20 Karachi-based artists simultaneously enacted performance works over the course of a single evening. For the Paris exhibition, as in most of Amin’s curatorial projects, the approach was multidisciplinary. The artists he invited to participate included not just those who dedicate their practice to performance but also photographers, painters, sculptors, actors, musicians, fashion designers and writers. Some who performed had no direct relation to the world of art. Yohan Kim, a native of South Korea who owns a pastry shop in the 18tharrondissement of Paris called Monsieur Caramel, made caramel in a Proustian attempt to trigger memory through taste/smell. Similarly, Benjamin Daman, a student of philosophy at the Sorbonne, ground spices with a mortar and pestle, taking him back to his childhood on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean. Saad Zeroual, a Frenchman of Algerian descent who works as a security guard at Amin’s favorite café in the Marais, agreed to perform a work he called Le physionomiste, in which he moved through the milling crowd of the show studying their faces. Just as in his Karachi exhibitions, the idea was to get people at large—both as participants as well as those who came to watch them—to not only engage with performance art, but to briefly enter a collective consciousness.

The show, which took place over the course of 70 minutes, began at the main entrance of the Cité internationale des arts on the rue de l’Hôtel de Ville, facing the Seine, and led to its auditorium and back again. Walking through the gates the visitor was greeted by electronic sound that the Saudi musician Muhanned E. Nassar played from the courtyard. The British artist Stephen Sheehan stood on a ledge facing the gate, recreating a work called We Are Giants Standing on Mountains that he had performed at the Tate Modern in London in which he urinated inside his jeans for an hour. Moving inside, two performative videos played. In one, called What Is He Doing Here? the Indian artist Baptist Coelho, dressed in army khakis, marched through a London park. In the other, called Set Free, the Finnish artist Salla Myllylä painted in white on windowpanes in a dialogue with the landscape she viewed through them. Juxtaposed with the videos, the French singer and composer André Fernandez, wearing a red kerchief over his eyes, improvised lyrics for his work Pentacost/Glossalalia. Nearby the Lebanese actor Raymond Hosny wore and spoke to a bronze mask titled Pain that Amin had made in the 1990s. Positioned behind a nearby staircase, Yohan Kim made his caramels while opposite him Tatyana Jinto Rutherston, who is of mixed Japanese and English parentage, kneeled and repeatedly wrote the word “token” on pieces of paper while dressed as a Japanese schoolgirl.

A Collective Dream - One Night Stand - Coup d’un soir - Amber-Arifeen

Climbing down the staircase, the audience jostled with performers, some stationary, others moving along a narrow corridor that led to an auditorium. Florencio Botas Verdes, an artist from Venezuela, sonorously blew into a conch shell before an installation of Christian and personal imagery. The Colombian artist, Chéo Cruz, his seemingly nude body covered in yellow and black paint, stood in a circle of wire mesh rimmed with fairy lights and turmeric performing a shamanistic dance. The Pakistani artist Amber Arifeen, wearing a hijab, knelt upon an installation of posters from 1950s French-controlled Algeria, urging women to take off the veil, while she scribbled, over and over again, on the reproduced posters, “Dévoilez,” (sic) or, Unveil Yourself. Next to her the Paris-based Pakistani artist Abi Tariq, his back to the passing crowd, intoned into a sampler for his work Hexentanz II, referencing the original work, choreographed by Mary Wigman circa 1914.

Opposite him, the French artist Alex Ayivi sat behind a desk piled high with a currency that he had created and called the MUA (Monnaie Unique Africaine), “a utopian device,” in his words, that he imagines as an alternative to the CFA franc, a currency whose origins date to colonial days that is still in circulation in many parts of Africa. He signed and gave away his handmade banknotes because, as he said, “I have too many.” Nearby, in a similar gesture of magnanimity, the Brazilian artist Otiniel Lins, covered head to foot in roses, plucked petals from himself and distributed them to the audience, “as a part of me, of my memories…fragile scales of my own skin, blood, tears,” he stated. Roses also appeared in the British artist Amy Kingsmill’s work, Fairy Tale, which she had previously performed at the Karachi Biennale 2017, in which she bled over a bouquet of white roses.

The French writer and filmmaker Laurence Hugues read from the recently unearthed diaries of a woman who had been her neighbor during the artist’s childhood in a village in Forez, a former province of France that is now part of the Loire department. Pas vu Maurice, chroniques de l’infraordinaire, a text based on the diaries, including photographs by Claude Benoit à la Guillaume, will be published by Creaphis Éditions in July 2019. Just around the corner from where Hugues sat reading the original diaries, the Paris-based American James Carlson photographed visitors’ eyes for an ongoing project he calls Eyes of Gaia. For this, he proposes to create a mosaic of the planet Earth from the reliefs and contrasts of 10,000 human irises. Situated next to him was a performance/installation by the Mauritian Nirveda Alleck, called Insular Variations III, in which the artist enacted, in her words, “an imagined ritual around a fictional landmass.” Next to her, the Egyptian artist Therese Antoine Louis obsessively taped together small cardboard boxes for a work she called Repetitive Forms while, at the entrance of the auditorium, the Berlin-based Australian artist Honi Ryan presented LISTEN in, an installation where participants were invited, two at a time, to sit side by side and listen to one another’s heartbeats through a stethoscope for a minimum of four minutes.

Entering the darkened auditorium, the visitor came upon Guillaume Pecquet, a Parisian computer programmer, lying crosswise upon its seats watching videos from YouTube depicting aerial bombing over Syria. On the stage, the Brazilian composer Mateus Araujo improvised his own arrangements on a piano while, accompanying him, the Iranian musician Aida Nosrat moved about the stage, singing incomprehensible phrases in a style influenced by her classical Persian training. Also on the stage, Amin Gulgee performed his own work, Ablution. For this, he sat before a ring of unlit white candles and pantomimed washing his face from an empty white bowl. Behind him, a projection of his algorithm/computer program 7 randomly rearranged elements of Arabic text.

Other performers were itinerant. Some encroached upon the stage, including the Iranian Hura Mirshekari, who confronted the audience and other performers with multiple masks created by her sculptor husband Mehdi Yamohammadi for their work Changing the Face. Tijana Todovic, a native of Montenegro, who is writing her Ph.D. thesis for the University of Ljubljana on clothes as visual symbols in the contemporary arts and practices of the former Yugoslavia, wore a coat that she had made of compressed wool that onlookers could stitch upon with red thread for an interactive word she called Omnia Mea Mecum Porto (My Body is My House I Am My Home.) Thierry Lo Shung Line, who grew up on the island of Réunion, performed objects, including a Buddha, a Ganesh, a cross, a compass, feathers and a crystal, attached to himself, also with red thread, while Paris-based journalist Eliane Volang distributed cakes that she had baked for a work called Epices and Love. Omar Didi, an LGBT activist from Tunisia who is pursuing his Master’s degree in International Studies at the Sorbonne, engaged random members of the audience in conversation in an attempt to make them question and deconstruct stereotypes in a piece he called One Sentence to Love Like Thunder. And the Congolese sculptor/performance artist Precy Numbi presented his work Kimabalambala, whose title borrows a Lingala word that refers to old cars exported to Africa from Europe. Numbi created a 23-kilo suit made of scrap metal and plastic from the carcases of these cars, which he wore as he ambled, robot-like, throughout the exhibition space in a political and ecological commentary.

Although the last of the performances unfolded in the auditorium, there was no ultimate destination in One Night Stand/Coup d’un soir. The viewer had to traverse, then re-traverse, the same constrained terrain upon which he/she had arrived, requiring him/her to make intuitive connections about the works on view. Sound changed as one journeyed back and forth through the exhibition, from Muhanned N. Naseer’s electronic beats in the courtyard, to André Fernandez’s fervent refrains in the reception area, to Florencio Botas Verdes’ soulful plaints at the foot of the stairwell, to Abi Tariq’s transmogrified voice in the corridor, to Aida Nosrat’s mysterious vocals projected from the stage of the auditorium. Smell/taste as a trigger for memory was also present throughout the exhibition, from Yohan Kim’s making of caramels, to Benjamin Daman’s mixing of spices, to Eliane Volang’s distribution of cakes that she had baked. Many performers enacted rituals, both personal and spiritual, including Chéo Cruz’s shamanistic movements, Otiniel Lins’ giving away of the flowers that he wore, Thierry Lo Shung Line’s performing of personalized talismans, Nivreda Alkleck’s interaction with the island-like installation that she had created, and Amy Kingsmill bleeding upon a bouquet of roses. Political concerns also emerged, especially those dealing with legacies of colonialism: Amber Arifeen commented upon a French colonial preoccupation with women unveiling themselves, while Alex Ayivi’s creation then dispersion of his own currency addressed legacies of Northern monetary control over the South, while Percy Numbi’s mutant robot spoke of Africa as a dumping ground for Europe’s unwanted cars.

Amin, as curator, wished the happening to be an immersive one. Sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste were all called upon to comprehend the totality of his intent, which was to invite both the performers and the audience into a collective dreamlike state. For this exhibition of group performance in Paris, as for those he has curated in Karachi, Amin referenced a quote by Yoko Ono: “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is a reality.”

Author: John McCarry

Source: Art Now Pakistan


Curatorial, International Public Art Festival 2019, Karachi

IPAF Interview on Chai Toast Aur Host – DAWN

  • Posted By Amin Gulgee
  • on February 25,2019
https://youtu.be/aXokfHpoLf8

Amin Gulgee with Romana Husain talk about the International Public Art Festival held in Karachi on 1st, 2nd and 3rd of March 2019 on Chai Toast Aur Host – Dawn.

Source: Dvideos Social


Amin Gulgee Gallery, Karachi, KB17 - Karachi Biennale, Print Media

Art for Citys Sake – Herald – KB 17

  • Posted By Amin Gulgee
  • on December 1,2017


View: Art for Citys Sake – Herald – KB 17 Page – 1

 

View: Art for Citys Sake – Herald – KB 17 Page – 2

View: Art for Citys Sake – Herald – KB 17 Page – 3

Source: Herald

 


Amin Gulgee Gallery, Karachi, KB17 - Karachi Biennale, Print Media

Karachi looks like Karachi again – KB 17

  • Posted By Amin Gulgee
  • on November 6,2017

View: Karachi looks like Karachi again – KB 17

Source: Tribune


KB17 - Karachi Biennale

‘Karachi looks like Karachi again!’

  • Posted By Amin Gulgee
  • on November 6,2017

KARACHI: The Karachi Biennale (KB) 2017 came to a subtle yet substantial end on Sunday, after two weeks of showcasing the works of 140 local and international artists.

The Biennale, described by German Counsel-General Rainer Schmiedchen as “the most exhilarating two weeks, since I have come to Karachi,” was the first of its kind. It utilised public places for the display of contemporary art, which in turn made it available for the masses, instead of being restricted to gallery viewing.

The closing ceremony was focused on highlighting the importance of cultivating the culture of art in society. Various speakers, including KB managing trustee Niilofur Farrukh also stressed on how important it was to make art available to not just critics but also the common man. “We decided to let the visitors decide which artist inspired them the most and encouraged them to cast votes to select the most popular artist in the Biennale.”

Revisiting forgotten heritage through art at the Karachi Biennale

Later the Shahneela and Farhan Faruqui Popular Choice Art Prize, comprising a trophy inspired by the mother goddess of Mohen Jo Daro and Rs500,000 was awarded to Shazia Sikandar for her projection based artwork.

The Shahneela and Farhan Faruqui Popular Choice Art Prize, comprising a trophy inspired by the mother goddess of Mohen Jo Daro and Rs500,000 was awarded to Shazia Sikandar for her projection based artwork. PHOTO: ATHAR KHAN/EXPRESS

The Shahneela and Farhan Faruqui Popular Choice Art Prize, comprising a trophy inspired by the mother goddess of Mohen Jo Daro and Rs500,000 was awarded to Shazia Sikandar for her projection based artwork. PHOTO: ATHAR KHAN/EXPRESS

Quoting artist Athar Jamal in her opening speech, Farrukh said, “Ab Karachi, Karachi jaisa lag raha hai [Now Karachi looks like Karachi]” when she spoke about the experience that the Biennale offered to her, as well as any other person who could make it to any of the 12 venues in the city that hosted the artwork.

“Since the 1970s art had taken a backseat. Karachi was consumed by all kinds of violence and art disappeared from the scene,” she said. “We were curious how a new generation, not necessarily exposed to art on such a large scale, will receive it. But the people embraced it, encouraging us to bring new surprises as part of the next Biennale in two years,” she said.

Farrukh thanked the many partners, artists, locations, foundations and donors who came forward to make the Biennale happen, while stressing that people need to keep supporting the arts, donating to artists and playing whatever part they can to ensure that art comes back to city’s public places.

‘I want to bring something other than art to the city’

Chief curator Amin Gulgee, in high spirits, declared “I love you Karachi, my crazy, crazy city,” as the start to his address.

“Karachi has seen so much and is battered and bruised, yet it is a city that refuses to die. But if art is not brought back, the city will continue to decay, much like any society without art.”

A musical performance was held a musical performance by Azad Sur. PHOTO: ATHAR KHAN/EXPRESS

A musical performance by Azad Sur. PHOTO: ATHAR KHAN/EXPRESS

He stressed the need for museums and how exposure to art enriches minds. “Art should not just be available for the 1%. There needs to be contemporary and modern art museums for the people.”

Gulgee said the turnout at the Biennale and these last two weeks taught him that “if you build it, they will come”. The people are interested and they will come, he said, referring to how people received the show.

Gulgee also specifically thanked his curatorial team, comprised curator at large Zarmeene Shah, assistant curators Zeerak Ahmed, Humayun Memon, Sara Pagganwala and curatorial member Adam Fahy-Majeed.

“I did not have any money to pay them and in return they had to suffer with me for two years,” he joked. “I do really appreciate all the effort they put in and even the artists, as we had limited funds and the cooperation extended to us by the artists was immense.”

The evening concluded with performance based work by actor and artist Jamal Shah, titled ‘Viewing the Video of Situation 101’, and a musical performance by Azad Sur, a band that creates music from a fusion of local and international instruments.

Source: tribune.com.pk


KB17 - Karachi Biennale

Being at the Biennale

  • Posted By Amin Gulgee
  • on November 5,2017

The KB17 is a larger-than-life experience, a giant leap for the art of Pakistan

Mahbub Jhokio – Photo by Ali Khurshid.

Talking about her first novel, the Booker prize winning author, Arundhati Roy recounted her mother’s reaction, of finding it odd to read names of local places, indigenous trees, and Indian people in an English novel. For her English literature was associated with locations such as the UK, Australia and North America. Roy responded to a disappointed mother: “Mom, we are also worthy of literature!”

With Amin Gulgee’s remarkably conceived project, an individual in Pakistan is forced to think that we too are worthy of a biennale.

Karachi Biennale 2017, inaugurated on October 21, is certainly the best thing to have happened to Pakistan, especially to the art world, in scale, concept, and execution.

Exhibited at 12 display sites, many people commented it did not seem like this was happening in Pakistan. This is a compliment to the hard work put together by the team that made the idea of Karachi Biennale a reality.

In Urdu, ‘witness’ means martyrdom (shahadat) as well. Both meanings — of bearing witness to something painful and forsaking one’s life for a cause — are significant because in the words of chief curator Amin Gulgee “… a bruised city like Karachi” has seen many political killings in its recent history.

It indeed is a giant leap for the art of Pakistan. It affirms that we have moved away from the landlocked notion of ‘national’ exhibitions and are entering the world of global art, as works of international artists (of different origins) such as Yoko Ono, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Shahzia Sikander and ORLAN provide a rare and great opportunity to glimpse the mainstream art at home. Like the breaking of national (or city) boundaries, there are no demarcations or ghettoisation of genres and formats of visual expressions. Thus, you witness and admire the performance of Sheema Kirmani as much as you do a painted canvas by Anwar Saeed.

Witness as its theme, the Karachi Biennale 2017 includes more than 160 artists, from several cities of Pakistan as well as from other parts of the planet. A magnificent exercise, it makes us believe in the capacity, potential and power of art from here. Amin Gulgee, the chief curator, and his team (including Zarmeene Shah, the curator at large) have not only transformed ordinary spaces into art venue but also our beliefs about art and ourselves. One can extend the theme of Witness to unlimited extents, and the artists invited to the KB17 interpreted it in innumerable manners.

Nadia Kaabi-linke

Nadia Kaabi.

Like the selection of spaces and participants, the choice of theme was intelligent too because the term has multiple connotations both in its local context and in its Urdu translation. Every day, in courts of law, people appear as witnesses of crimes. In Urdu, ‘witness’ means martyrdom (shahadat) as well. Both meanings — of bearing witness to something painful and forsaking one’s life for a cause — are significant because in the words of chief curator Amin Gulgee “… a bruised city like Karachi” has seen many political killings in its recent history. A past that is marred by dead bodies in sacks found in cabs and on roadsides.

No wonder a few works had sack as their main motif. Kanwal Tariq’s performance — with human beings stuck inside big plastic bags who were moving during the performance — suggests how a living being can be reduced to the state of a captive animal, or about political suppression that manifests in eradicating opponents in the cruellest way. The sack appears again in the sculptures of Jamil Baloch, a series of bodies wrapped in a coffin-like white cloth, with the impression of a large tire on their trampled bodies. Arranged in a line, these white pieces allude to conditions in Balochistan, particularly when you ponder on the scale and texture of tires (associated with military vehicles) on flattened torsos.

Also at the NJV School, Seema Nusrat piled up sand sacks at the entrance of this high building. The impact and success of this installation lies in the fact that many viewers were not aware of this being an artwork; they thought it to be a ‘normal’ security protocol where buildings are routinely barricaded with sacks.

The imperceptible line between life and art, a notable feature of Nusrat’s work is observed in the art of Mahbub Jokhio (at Claremont House) in which the artist has built graves in different colours, which can be actual or fabricated. Likewise, the installations of Veera Rustomjee, Hira Khan, and Yasser Vayani at the same site suggest how found objects can be modulated and incorporated to communicate complex concept about existence. The pieces of machinery or furniture bound in blue plastic bags refer back to the history of a city that has witnessed genocide on state, political, ethnic and sectarian levels. Adeela Suleman’s metal and fabric ‘medical’ stretchers adorned with images of various kinds (at FOOMA) represent the continuous presence of death in our situation.

Some of these killings are caused by religious outfits which though banned resonate with a substantial section of community (notice the fund collection boxes for these organisations at small shops in our towns!). In fact, it is the power of faith that helps them sustain, grow and spread. Recognising this aspect, Hamra Abbas has displayed a number of prints based upon prayer rugs, and footwear (made in wood) which look as if left outside a holy shrine or mosque. Although Abbas has concentrated on the element of faith in her art, looking at these pairs of sandals and shoes put on top of each other, one wonders if art spaces have also turned into sacred spaces.

Ayaz Jhokio

Ayaz Jhokio.

There are not just sacred spaces, there are sacred speeches too. Words of God, which may turn a normal citizen into a militant or to find his faith in turbulent times. Nadia Kaabi-Linke addresses this link in her video installation in which the holy text is transmitted through two lips and then repeated by people in a church congregation on the other side of the room.

The connection of art and sacredness is witnessed in works dealing with the idea of respect associated with a book, especially the ‘text book’. The system of education in most cases is not about exploring knowledge but following the person who brings you the truth (approved curriculum). Ayaz Jokhio in his work (small sculptures made with minute details) points out this aspect of ‘respect’ or slavery, because as soon as you enter one classroom, all kids stand up as if to honour their teacher. The venue being a school, it adds to the understanding of the work which is about how a conditioned mind is trained to act from an early age in the name of custom, tradition, ethics etc.

Many artists have addressed personal, public, and social concerns in their works, like Ali Kazim’s installation of hair or Moeen Faruqi’s painting of an uncanny interior, Nausheen Saeed’s enclaves with the same woman taking her selfie as well as her life, Aamir Habib’s installation of a donkey and small tv sets on both sides, Ayessha Qureshi’s minimal and lyrical photographs and video projections of buildings, Saba Khan’s sculptures with organic bodies spilling out of ornate chairs, the performance of Hurmat ul Ain and Rabbeya Nasir in which the duo peeled onions but tears coming out of this domestic activity unsettle you.

There is something else that unnerves at the V.M. Art Gallery, where the curated exhibition of Carlos Acero Ruiz deals with the issue of disappearance and political turmoil. After a series of prints with drawings of objects and pictures of people, you come across the video installation of Jason Mena in which a national flag is hit by bullets in a measured speed, making holes in a sequence.

This particular work about the political state of a territory can be a testimony of the present art world in which the idea of nationhood in art is being punctured through opening up new venues, where small differences between local and international, private and public, and permanent and temporary have become insignificant details; because what is communicated is a larger-than-life experience. Just like the KB17.

By Quddus Mirza – November 5, 2017

Source: thenews.com.pk


Amin Gulgee Gallery, Karachi, KB17 - Karachi Biennale, Print Media

Scotch Tape and Love – KB 17

  • Posted By Amin Gulgee
  • on November 3,2017

View: Scotch Tape and Love – KB 17

Source: Friday Times


KB17 - Karachi Biennale

Karachi Biennale ‘17 at NJV School

  • Posted By Amin Gulgee
  • on November 3,2017

 

HAPPENINGS

If it weren’t Karachi Biennale ’17, I wouldn’t have ever thought of visiting Narain Jagan Nath High School, the first public school established in Sindh in 1855. Before that, it was just another magnificent architectural building from the nineteenth century I saw everyday while passing through M. A Jinnah Road.Karachi Biennale ‘17 at NJV School

Karachi Biennale ’17, a two-week long contemporary art event, was held at 12 venues that included heritage sites like Jamshed Memorial Hall, Pioneer Book House, Claremont Hall, 63 Commissariat Lines, Frere Hall, and various other art institutes and galleries. What a perfect way to draw people’s attention toward the heritage of Karachi!

Upon entering the school, I was immediately cut off from the hustle and bustle of M. A Jinnah Road and was struck by the calm inside the school, which made it an ideal place to appreciate art.

Depressingly political

Two identical mannequins standing opposite each other, one posing for a selfie and the other pointing a pistol towards itself, six screens on a wall that showed six different videos of people destroying weapons of warfare, broken guns strewn on one side of a wall and a highly disturbing soundtrack “Subh-e-Umeed” in the background politically charged installations that highlighted the misery and helplessness of innocent Pakistanis affected by terrorism. These installations made us uneasy and we began to crave for some light-hearted art.Karachi Biennale ‘17 at NJV School

Another terrifying installation was a display of dead bodies run over by a car. I couldn’t stand there for a long time; those fake dead bodies were speaking to us about the people who had been the victims of violence in the past. Their dead bodies were left unattended in deadening silence.

Two video installations were run side by side by in a classroom were not for the faint-hearted. The video “Icarus” by Mithu Sen showed a dying bird being attacked by ants. The other video “Up to the big eye” was an installation by Guillaume Robert.

Aesthetically pleasing

This brings us to a real classroom with unreal students, an installation by Ayaz Jokhio; as soon as you open the door, the miniature puppets dressed in school uniform with their tiny books opened in front of them stand up to welcome you. You close the door, and they sit down. The fun part was we made them stand up and sit down again and again until we realized that these cute puppets had a serious message for us: the real students are humans, so don’t treat them like puppets!

Outside the classroom, in the corridor, there was a massive display of amazing prints of abstract art. Zoom in, and you see images of kites, spin tops (latto) and slingshots in the prints; this installation celebrated the games youth enjoyed playing before the arrival of smartphones.

And yes, the cozy meteorite made of styrofoam was a performative installation at NJV School. The performers were not there to amuse us so we got close to the meteorite and tried to understand what it was and what message it had for us — and also took several pictures for studying it further at home.

Towards the end of the corridor on first floor of the school stood an installation by Sonya Batla; created with used bottles, bandages, wood scraps, robes, garlic, pomegranates, and other found  objects, this installation “recreated identity” in the current refugee crisis in Karachi Biennale ‘17 at NJV Schoolthe world.

There were several other art exhibits in the school; in fact, every space was creatively utilized for setting up installations. We saw wire balls under the tree, stitched tires on the benches and even bikes with milk pots. At some points, it gets really difficult to decipher the implied meaning of these pieces, and we could only say “wow, this looks amazing” and move on. Contemporary art is complicated; young Pakistani artists have become sensitive to what is happening around them and they know how to respond to it. KB17 was just a display of their power!

“Over 140 artists from Pakistan and across the globe participated in KB17 and responded to a common theme: WITNESS. Chief curator Amin Gulgee conceptualized KB17 exhibitions with performances, screenings, and dialogue for charting new movement through familiar spaces. It was an occasion to participate in an aesthetic, intellectual and emotional survey of the city. The exhibits, installations, and performances disrupted the limits of our spatial imagination.” The main venue of KB17 was the 160 year old, NJV School building. This gave easy access to new audiences and also brought into discussion Karachi’s history, which has been often overshadowed by tensions of

rapid growth.

With an architecture of exhibitions, discursive interventions and extensive visitor programmes during the KB17, art in Karachi combined creative energies and sparked new ones. (karachibiennale.org.pk)

By S.G – November 3, 2017

Pictures by Tooba

Source: thenews.com.pk


Amin Gulgee Gallery, Karachi, KB17 - Karachi Biennale, Print Media

Concrete Jungle Mein Mangal – KB 17

  • Posted By Amin Gulgee
  • on November 1,2017

View: Concrete Jungle Mein Mangal – KB 17 Page – 1

View: Concrete Jungle Mein Mangal – KB 17 Page – 2

View: Concrete Jungle Mein Mangal – KB 17 Page – 3

View: Concrete Jungle Mein Mangal – KB 17 Page – 4

Source: NewsLine


KB17 - Karachi Biennale

Karachi Biennale seeking to engage community through art

  • Posted By Amin Gulgee
  • on October 30,2017

KARACHI: Karachi Biennale 2017 (KB17) continued with the art exhibitions in addition to performing art at twelve venues in the city. The opening ceremony of KB17 took place last Saturday at the historical 160-year old Narayan Jagannath Vaidya (NJV) High School, the main venue for the event.

The Biennale has been open to the public from October 22 until November 5 when the closing ceremony of the event will take place at Frere Hall.

The event is Pakistan’s largest international contemporary art event aiming to bring together innovation, excellence and criticality through a multiplicity of curatorial strategies. Seeking to engage the community through art, the Biennale strengthens a global art exchange showcasing artists from Pakistan to the world.

KB17 focuses on the curated exhibits, with over 140 artists from all across the world including Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Far East. To help the audience get an insight into the work and expand interdisciplinary connections with art, the Biennale offers educational and discursive interaction to visitors, also expanding the educational activities to over 300 children.

Three performances at Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture and the Alliance Francaise, titled ‘OVERxCOME’ and ‘Fairytale’ by Miro Craemer and Amy Elizabeth Kingsmill respectively, engaged the visitors. Miro’s interactive performance – a collaboration of Pakistani and German performers and musicians – moved through the grounds of the Indus Valley School, with the audience following the performers across the building.

As a part of the educational activities, over 320 children from four schools in different parts of Karachi came together at NJV High School, VM Gallery, Karachi School of Art, and Alliance Francaise. The programme, engaging school children to connect with art, included visits to the art exhibitions and installations followed by a discussion session.

The programme also brings into its fold art students and educators in the outreach to children. This, in turn, has paved the way for better understanding of practices and mechanisms to make art more comprehensible and accessible for young minds.

Senior art critic Marjorie Hussain chaired the inaugural session with a group of artists, professionals, civil society and businessmen of the city attending the ceremony. The ceremony, with participation from 1,000 members of public from different walks of life, featured a session with visiting artists, a discussion on public art and addresses by chief curator and KB17 CEO.

The Biennale will also feature two prizes to acknowledge the most evocative exhibits in KB17, namely KB17 Mahvash and Jahangir Siddiqui Foundation Juried Prize and the KB17 Shahneela and Farhan Faruqui Popular Choice Art Prize.

The prizes would reflect the Karachi Biennale Trust’s sustained commitment to recognising the effort and impact of participating artists’ work, as it engages with conversations around art, cities, and the ‘act of witnessing’.

Over 140 artists have showcased their work at the Biennale which was displayed at 12 venues all across the city, with five on MA Jinnah Road. The artists have come from Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, the Far East, and various parts of Pakistan. The works of internationally renowned artists like Yoko Ono, Shahzia Sikander, Richard Humann, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Orlan, Bani Abedi, Meher Afroz, Miro Craemer, Bankleer, and Ruby Chishti, among others, were displayed for a large audience.

To help the audience get an insight into the work and expand interdisciplinary connections with art, BK17 offers educational and discursive interaction to visitors. In this regard, a series of conversations and lectures across two weeks of the event featuring Meher Afroz, Savita Apte , Saquib Hanif, Dr Marek Bartelik, Dr Marcella Sirhandi, Paolo De Grandis, Carlos Aceros Ruiz, Adriana Almada, and Dannys Montes de Oca Moreda, would be held at the ZVMG Rangoonwala Community Centre and the State Bank auditoriums.

Other public events such as poetry and book readings on Karachi, a performance and installation by Jamal Shah, performance works, a sound and light installation by German new media artist Wolfgang Spahn, Dholi Taro (Drum Circle), and project screening at different public spaces in Karachi would also be a part of the Biennale.

The chief curator would be Amin Gulgee, a well-known artist and curator of Pakistan.

This year, the theme of the Biennale would be ‘gawahi’ (witness). Works of art and installations at the Karachi Biennale would be based on this theme, which was chosen for its strong relevance to politics of representation, erasure and selective documentation.

Held in over a 100 countries across the world, art biennales have played an important role in transforming the perception of cities and it is hoped that by organising this inclusive cultural activity in Karachi, KB17 would foreground the city’s vibrant art scene. Local audiences will experience art from other countries and understand its vital link to life, like literature and music.

Since the 1950s, as Karachi grew from a small harbour town to a mega urban centre, it has attracted and embraced independent thinkers and artists. The city has been home to many influential modernists and contemporary artists, with a gallery circuit that is one of the most vibrant in South Asia.

BY ARSHAD HUSSAIN – OCTOBER 30, 2017

Source: pakistantoday.com.pk


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