Aaj aur Kal
2026
Karachi
Curated by Amin Gulgee and Noor Ahmed
Amin Gulgee launched the Amin Gulgee Gallery in 2000. He continues to show his work on the ground floor of his Karachi home, but also sees the need to open up his noncommercial space about once a year to curate or co-curate large-scale exhibitions of his contemporaries. Past shows have included “Imag[IN]ing Cities” in 2011, an exhibition of new media work from Pakistan and across Africa and “Riwhyti: One Night Stand,” a group exhibition of Pakistani performance art in 2013. Almost all of the Amin Gulgee Gallery’s shows have been documented by catalogues either physical or electronic.
Throughout 2023 and 2024, Amin worked with the architect Samina Anjarwalla to reimagine the adjoining Gulgee Museum also opened in 2000 and originally designed by Nayyar Ali Dada. This was where Amin’s parents lived and showed Ismail Gulgee’s work until their and their maid’s murder by a recently hired driver and his accomplice in 2007. In February 2025, Amin reopened the Gulgee Museum, which he curated, dividing the collection into 17 sections. Gulgee Museum: The Handbook was published by Lightstone later that year.
“Aaj aur Kal” was the first exhibition to take place throughout both the Amin Gulgee Gallery and the Gulgee Museum. It was fitting that this show should be to celebrate 10 years of the Karachi Biennale as Amin is not only a founding Trustee but also curated the inaugural Karachi Biennale in 2017. For this one-day exhibition of performance, new media and installation of both Pakistani and international artists, Amin joined forces with Noor Ahmed, curator of “Kal,” Karachi Biennale’s 2027 iteration.
The Urdu word kal is flexible. It can mean either yesterday or tomorrow, depending on how it is used in a sentence. Amin introduced the word aaj—today—into the title of this show, emphasizing its fleeting nature. Seen within the context of the joint spaces where the exhibition was installed, “Aaj aur Kal”—which can mean Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow—resonated in many ways.
