Written by: Nayha Jehangir Khan
Posted on: September 19, 2022 | 
| 中文
Building Up A Facade by Sumaiya Saiyed
Sculpture's complex materiality and conceptual agility are highlighted through the expansive display in the group exhibition titled SCULPTOR/SCULPTURE at the COMO Museum in Lahore. Seher Tareen, Founder of the museum, organised an Open Call requesting submissions earlier on in the year. After receiving a tremendous response, the following artists were selected:
Abdul Hammad, Aimen Tirmizi, Alizeh Ijaz, Amber Arifeen, Anam Rani, Arfa Shan, Ayaz Jokhio, Ayessha Quraishi, Babar Gull, Bilal Jabbar, Bushra Waqas Khan, Faheem Abbas, Hassan Sheikh, Hina Tabassum, Irfan Abdullah, Kishwar Kiani, Maha Sohail, Mahbub Jokhio, Marwat Hidayat, Nairah Sharjeal, Neelam Sheikh, Nausheen Saeed, Noman Siddiqui, Noor Ali Chagani, Rabbiya Ilyas, Raheela Abro, Rahman Zada, Sadqain, Sidra Khawaja, Sidra Saleem, Sohaib Qasim, Sumaiya Saiyed, Ujala Hayat, Waheed Latif, Yumna and Zoha Zafar Malik.
The role of the artist can be critical, by an insight into their surroundings and the ability to investigate social phenomena, expressed creatively through a visual reenactment. Ayaz Jokhio’s “assi gallan karday reh gaye, te bazi le gaye malhi…” is a playful miniature version of a life-sized public sculpture of Allama Iqbal from a public park in Lahore. The loving tribute was created by the gardeners of the park at their own expense, but was torn down for its somewhat amateur execution by officialdom, hence becoming a symbol of art resistance in the face of authoritarian regulations. Transporting visitors to a scene of classical sculptural mastery, the monumental scale of David’s portrait by Marwat Hidayat displayed in the museum garden has an immediate impact, revealing the abstraction resting between the historical realism of Michelangelo. The “Music Box” by Sidra Saleem invites the viewer to interact with colourful clowns. There are strange caricatures of heads lining the lid and carnival references by turning the handle for the tuned metal prongs of the mechanical music instrument that plays a familiar song, normally associated with nostalgic jewellery boxes.
Music Box by Sidra Saleem
Rabbiya Ilyas’s bold and confident mirror mosaic is designed as two large spherical objects reflecting light directed at them in many directions, the form reflecting the female body drenched in a rose-tinted tone that has a mesmerising effect on the viewer. The installation “Under Construction” by Noor Ali Chagani uses various miniature tiles that are weathered with industrial erosion, each piece carrying its distinctive colour and texture, resembling the form of a painting paired with a quiet pile of miniature bricks. There is an intricate relationship between the hundreds of miniature bricks placed within an intimate circle and the stoic hanging of the chemically worn-down metal tiles in a rectangle on the wall, drawing a linkage between the forms.
Rabbiya Ilyas' artwork
The act of deconstruction is empowering in “Najmat-ul-Qudus” by Bushra Waqas Khan, as she meticulously uses boning techniques to create her imaginative gowns infusing them with symmetrical iconography of Islamic art. An alternate interpretation of reassembling can be viewed in Sumaiya Saiyed’s muralistic textile work “Building Up A Facade” which has bulbous forms of fabric treated with acid and colour dye, welting with weighted force. The skin of the colourful fabrics mingled together, begin to resemble body organs that the artist has enlarged to a larger than life scale, revealing their turmoil and pain. The tactile threshold of polyester cotton can be experienced in “Ecdysis of Glory” by Nairah Sharjeal, as the artist references representational objects rendering them into ephemeral sculptures using a kind of weightless casting and delicate sowing techniques. The surface has transparency through which light passes and gently creates swaying shadows. Simulating an uninterrupted gathering of waltzing figures in “Works Field” by Bilal Jabbar, intertwined forks are paired and gently lit to cast shadows dancing along with the objects.
Works Field by Bilal Jabbar
Nausheen Saeed’s topographical cutouts in “The New World Order” delineate spatial forms stacked as piles of building blocks until they resemble a 3-D mapping of unchartered continents creating a harmonious realm. The unpredictable nature of seepage is documented in the installation “Grime” by Sadquain, it engages in deliberate osmosis to highlight the transformative effect of a drenched pigmented fabric on the composition of a block of wood and plaster built into the formation of a small construction building. These industrial motifs are sprawling across our environment, in Kishwar Kiani’s “296 and counting…” the artist analogises scaffolding as a transient form of building and reinventing reality. The permanence of the large hold between the bars of meticulously welded metal rods examines the disorientation between control and chaos.
296 and counting… by Kishwar Kiani
The quirky use of cell phone sims to create miniature sculptures immediately captivates the viewer in Raheela Abro’s series. These objects are directly referencing the everyday visual language in our collective cultural experiences of modern life.
Storytelling is intrinsic to our sense of self as we view ourselves as protagonists and our reality as a series of experiences that are interconnected through seeking meaning in our contemporary existence.
The imaginative installation “Duck Duck Goose” by Ujala Hayat invites the viewer into a playful investigation by viewing a series of black eggs and a single golden egg through a microscope provided to them. There are multiple handwritten notes from the artist attached to the wall along with the original piece of literature on the Goose. Presenting her personal history, Sidra Khawaja depicts life experiences of being a Kashmiri and the politics of identity as a ceremonious installation taking place in the kitchen in “A Forlorn Paradise”, where a customised tapestry, lettered with a popular proverb from the community invites the viewer into the space. The objects have been altered with the tragic symbolism of conflict creating a sense of dread and strife, paired with screenplay format hanging on the wall describing the various aspects of the presentation.
A Forlorn Paradise by Sidra Khawaja
The group exhibition display hosts over 35 artists under one roof and will be open for two months to the general public. Certainly, worth a visit for art lovers, as it’s an exhibition with a difference.
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