The Crucifiction
2009
ArtSpace – Dubai

The Crucifixion occurred a little over a year after the murder of Amin’s parents and their maid by a recently hired driver and his accomplice at their Karachi home. He revealed the performance at the opening of his solo exhibition of sculpture, Looking for the Magic Center, at ArtSpace Dubai. For this, Angeline Malik, an actor, director and producer for Pakistani television, appeared to crucify him upon his sculpture, 47: Charbagh, in which leaves and fragments of his own face cast in bronze compose a perpendicular grid. The title of the sculpture referenced the year of Pakistan’s independence as well as the four-quadrant garden plan the Moghuls introduced to the subcontinent. As the performance began, Amin stood before his bronze and copper work in a black sherwani, a formal Pakistani coat. Angeline, wearing a long black skirt and blouse, slowly approached. Suddenly, she ripped open the buttons of Amin’s jacket and snubbed out a burning cigarette onto his bare chest. Amin arched his back in pain, his arms spread, as he leaned against the sculpture in the form of a Greek cross, seeming to be nailed upon it. Angeline showered him with handfuls of gold dust, which billowed in clouds around them, obscuring their two forms. He slowly crumpled to the ground, where she knelt down to embrace him, holding him like a Pietà. After the performance, the startled audience trampled the thin layer of gold dust throughout the gallery, unconsciously leaving a ghostly presence of themselves in their wake.