By Zofeen T.
Ebrahim
October may
not be the best month to launch events in Karachi, a city described as
"maddening” by Amin Gulgee, the chief curator of the Karachi Art Biennale
2017 (KB17). But neither the sizzling heat nor the crazy Karachi traffic seems
to have deterred artists or art lovers from doing the rounds at the 12 venues
selected for this two-week event.
Touted as
Pakistan’s "largest contemporary art event", the Biennale has artwork
strewn across the city of 20 million and runs until Nov. 5. The prime location
is the architecturally striking NJV High School, but other venues include an
old bookstore, a cinema, the building of the Alliance Française, and the
Karachi School of Art.
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| At the Biennale: Mussalmaan Musclemen by Z. A. Bhutto, 2016. Archival inkjet print on cotton fabric, hand-sewn printed polyester and blue embroidery thread. |
The theme of
the biennale - "Witness" - aims to take visitors through the city’s
history (with the opening up of old colonial buildings), to question the
present, and to imagine what the future might be.
In the
absence of a museum of modern art where the organisers could have set up the
event under one roof, Amra Ali, a Karachi-based curator and art critic, is
happy the biennial has opened "art that has been confined to galleries, to
a larger audience".
"Public
art interventions in 'non-art' spaces such as the ones selected by the
organisers bring about a negotiation of art to its social and cultural
histories," she said.
For their
part, the organisers say they made a very "conscious effort" to let
the public traverse the city and its historical precincts.
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| Amin Gulgee, chief curator of KB17. |
According to
Ali, with people visiting one venue or the other, there is a greater
"sense of discovery in revisiting, and in some cases visiting for the
first time, spaces that have existed in our memory".
Additionally,
such an event not only speaks of the "power of art to transform and bring
people to view and be inspired," but it shows that art “belongs to us, as
a city, collectively", she said.
The works by some
140 artists from more 30 countries include installations, videos, photographs, dance, performances and other art forms, most of it conceptual.
"It's
been a labour of love, passion and a lot of hard work," said Niilofur
Farrukh, the CEO of KB17, while Gulgee has reminded observers that the surreal
journey he embarked upon more than a year ago was done on a shoestring budget.
For many
visitors, however, some of the installations need decoding since most messages
are not always obvious. "What I find amiss is a short guide with
explanations of the art works," said Ingo Arend, an art critic and art
editor from Germany. "If you want to reach out for a wider public, not
that familiar with contemporary art, one should give them some advice."
A parallel
south-south critical dialogue is equally taking place at the Biennale. "As
a theme we want to explore how thinkers/artists/art from Latin America are
bearing testimony to their times," said Farrukh.
 |
| Daalaan, 2017 by Salman Jawed, Faiza Adamjee, Ali S Husain, Mustafa Mehdi, Hina Fancy and Zaid Hameed. |
"The
project also aims to strengthen intellectual exchange directly between
south-south independently and not via the north." she emphasized.
Cuban art
curator Dannys Montes de Oca (who was reminded of Havana's road "chaos” by
the tsunami of traffic on Karachi’s main thoroughfare) says that the voices
from the South are usually missing at these so-called "international"
art shows. This is because these shows are costly, so most artists from
developing countries cannot afford to showcase themselves.
She thus favours "alternative"
biennales. She said she was happy the art on display was not
"passive" and seemed to engage the audience.
Arend, who
was among the three jury members for the KB17 art prize, has, like de Oca,
attended biennales in the North and had specially come to Karachi to see
"something else". He expressed satisfaction that the event promotes a
counter-narrative to the so-called modernist obsession with the white cube.
"They [KB17] should try and stay on the
experimental ground and avoid the sterile white cubeism," he said, noting
that had it not been for the venues, the event could very well have fallen into
the Venice Biennale-like model.
For him, it was
uplifting to see how the artists had reclaimed "amazing public
locations" that had been relegated to the inner recesses of people's
memories and had revived them, through the Biennale, to provide a platform
"for collective discourse".
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| Untitled, 2017, by Ayaz Jhokio, Mixed media installation. |
"There
are thousands of biennials all over the world now; every major city has been
holding them. In terms of structure, I think that looking closer to this
region, to places such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, would bring more parallels
and shared concerns,” she said.
“We have to
develop our own models, even if the model is an anti-biennial model, and that
will come naturally, as we evolve. That will all happen, as we have taken the
first step, which is most difficult. We have opened ourselves to the
world," she added.
Art events across
the globe have increasingly become a source of local pride, tourism and
cultural capital, generating revenue for cities. Paolo De Grandis, an Italian
contemporary art curator who works with the Venice Biennale, said that while
art carries several messages including a very strong "political
message" it provides "a massive business opportunity" too that
needs to be tapped.
The grandpa
of all these events is of course the Venice Biennale, founded in 1895. Fondly
known as the "Olympics" of art, it is also the most prestigious.
This first
Karachi Biennale may have taken only baby steps, but it is a big deal for the
Pakistan artist community, who may see their work at the next Venice Biennale,
in 2019.
Zofeen T.
Ebrahim is a freelance journalist based in Karachi.
