PNCA lacks funds to maintain art gallery

National Art Gallery receives three pieces from architect Naeem Pasha

On a day when the National Art Gallery was termed as the premier gallery of the country, its chief curator has lamented an abject paucity of funds to maintain the establishment.

Pakistan National Council of Arts (PNCA) Director General Jamal Shah on Thursday said that the council had received a paltry six per cent of its annual Rs15 million budget which made it hard to promote the actual mandate of the national gallery.

He said that in the funds the PNCA has available, it is unable to collect art pieces for the permanent collection of the national gallery, and is thus dependent on artists donating works for the collection.

“A Senate Standing Committee in its recent meeting has asked the federal government to increase the PNCA’s budget to Rs100 million. Let’s see if that recommendation materialises. The PNCA would then be able to adequately run its programming countrywide,” Shah said at a ceremony where the renowned architect and artist Naeem Pasha donated some of his work the national gallery, a statement read.

“We are also planning some corporate dinners where the large companies would be invited to buy the artists’ work and donate it to the NAG. These pieces would be kept in the permanent collection with the names of the companies and the artists,” he added.

Pasha, meanwhile, urged artists to contribute to the permanent collection of the National Art Gallery.

“If they [artists] are not there [National Art Gallery], they are nowhere even if they are the top tier artists because presence of their art in the NAG would not only add value to the national art treasure, it would also make their art pieces a part of the [nation’s] history,” Pasha said with a view to some of the top artists of the country who have been exhibiting worldwide but are not represented at the gallery in Islamabad.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 15^th, 2017.