All Puns end with Guns

- Posted on: April 24, 2013 | Comments

A history of political controversies, incomprehensible vernacular puns and an inability to break from political discontent; themes, images and words that are explored in Rohtas Gallery’s latest exhibition. Five different artists from different approaches explore not only the conventional perception of our political landscape, but the narratives in which we have trapped ourselves.

Samra Roohi, a student from Karachi University, teases the viewer to re-imagine the established rhetoric through visual puns by using lenticular images. A line of 5000 Rupee notes with the Quaid, that at another angle appears to be Altaf Hussain, or Imran Khan or Nawaz Sharriff.

The collaboration between artists Imrana Tanveer and Aly Naqvi illustrates the endless cycle of Pakistan’s political history. Our history is like one of Imrana’s shredded images, that will only be reconstructed as the future.

As the momentum to the elections grows consuming everything around, including the world of art, “All puns end with guns” proves that art is not the victim of political antipathy but the vehicle of debate, change and activism.