Bani Abidi returns with the ghost of Mohammad bin Qasim
ArtNow asks her to speak of her work presented in Germany and destined for India.
KARACHI:
Bani Abidi may have only been away from Karachi for a year, but when she steps into the FOMMA Trust’s art centre in Zamzama Park, people scramble over themselves to meet her.
Abidi is described as one of Pakistan’s most prominent video installation artists. While the work she has produced and the list of the galleries it has been featured in is exhaustive - from the Museum of Modern Art in New York to London’s Whitechapel Art gallery - for Abidi her point of reference in Karachi is her last show here in 2010 at the VM Art Gallery.
The ArtNow publication brought Abidi in to discuss her work as part of its Springboard Series, in association with the FOMMA Trust. “Bani is a very important diasporic artist,” said ArtNow’s Nafisa Rizvi. “It is only now that she has been recognised internationally and she is one of two Pakistanis to have been featured at the prestigious dOCUMENTA in Kassel, Germany. The work she’s showing is brand new for all of us!”
Abidi said it was “very exciting” to be a part of it, since it is one of the most important contemporary art shows in the world. “It’s an honour and it’s a huge blockbuster [show]… I prefer smaller shows where I get to meet the curator etc.”
“I’ve grown up here and it feels really good to be back,” Abidi told The Express Tribune. “It takes a while to distance yourself and observe what has happened, what has changed.”
Students, young artists and a smattering of regular faces on the art circuit - including Sameera Raja of Canvas and Tabinda Chinoy - were at the event. Abidi showed the video installation she had done for dOCUMENTA - ‘Death at a 30 Degree Angle’, which was commissioned by the Sharjah Art Foundation - but she also exhibited and discussed some of her earlier work.
One of these was ‘The Ghost of Mohammad bin Qasim’ - a fictional narrative around a young boy named Yousaf Masih who converts to Islam, ends up fighting with his family and moving to Karachi, where he dresses up as Mohammad bin Qasim and poses in front of historical monuments.
The idea, Abidi said, was “about how Mohammad bin Qasim [was] written into history and the influence [on] the lives, imagination and understanding of Pakistan.” The character, Yousaf Masih, was inspired by Christian cricketer Yousaf Youhanna’s conversion to Islam.
The “eccentrics who live around us” are a focus of her work. “People who have eccentric habits… it’s a cathartic process [in which] you deny logic and do strange things and the world doesn’t accept that.”
“There’s this deewangi that happens, and this character is a deewana.”
The photographs of the young man dressed in flowing clothes atop a camel were Photoshopped into images of historical monuments like the Minar-e-Pakistan and the Quaid’s mausoleum, their askew scaling having a jarring and disorienting effect.
Another installation she recently finished features military figurines set to a narrative of a man who “subverts from the agenda”. Abidi recollected how one can buy models of “dead Afghans, Iraqis and Palestinians” with labels such as “curious Arab” or “rock-throwing insurgent.”
‘Death at a 30 Degree Angle’ is about a subject closer to home. Even though it is set in India, around a fictional politician who wants to have a statue of himself made, it’s a subject that would resonate here too, given the numerous photos and posters of politicians in our cities. Abidi was inspired by former Utter Pradesh chief minister Mayawati’s statues and tracked down the 87-year-old sculptor Ram Sutar in Delhi. “I found him so much more interesting than my little idea,” she said. And he features in the installation as well. As the politician preens and tries different ideas for his statue - a shawl, a new pair of shoes - the film struck a chord around the room. Abidi is set to show it in India in December, where it will undoubtedly resonate even more strongly.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 19th, 2012.
Bani Abidi may have only been away from Karachi for a year, but when she steps into the FOMMA Trust’s art centre in Zamzama Park, people scramble over themselves to meet her.
Abidi is described as one of Pakistan’s most prominent video installation artists. While the work she has produced and the list of the galleries it has been featured in is exhaustive - from the Museum of Modern Art in New York to London’s Whitechapel Art gallery - for Abidi her point of reference in Karachi is her last show here in 2010 at the VM Art Gallery.
The ArtNow publication brought Abidi in to discuss her work as part of its Springboard Series, in association with the FOMMA Trust. “Bani is a very important diasporic artist,” said ArtNow’s Nafisa Rizvi. “It is only now that she has been recognised internationally and she is one of two Pakistanis to have been featured at the prestigious dOCUMENTA in Kassel, Germany. The work she’s showing is brand new for all of us!”
Abidi said it was “very exciting” to be a part of it, since it is one of the most important contemporary art shows in the world. “It’s an honour and it’s a huge blockbuster [show]… I prefer smaller shows where I get to meet the curator etc.”
“I’ve grown up here and it feels really good to be back,” Abidi told The Express Tribune. “It takes a while to distance yourself and observe what has happened, what has changed.”
Students, young artists and a smattering of regular faces on the art circuit - including Sameera Raja of Canvas and Tabinda Chinoy - were at the event. Abidi showed the video installation she had done for dOCUMENTA - ‘Death at a 30 Degree Angle’, which was commissioned by the Sharjah Art Foundation - but she also exhibited and discussed some of her earlier work.
One of these was ‘The Ghost of Mohammad bin Qasim’ - a fictional narrative around a young boy named Yousaf Masih who converts to Islam, ends up fighting with his family and moving to Karachi, where he dresses up as Mohammad bin Qasim and poses in front of historical monuments.
The idea, Abidi said, was “about how Mohammad bin Qasim [was] written into history and the influence [on] the lives, imagination and understanding of Pakistan.” The character, Yousaf Masih, was inspired by Christian cricketer Yousaf Youhanna’s conversion to Islam.
The “eccentrics who live around us” are a focus of her work. “People who have eccentric habits… it’s a cathartic process [in which] you deny logic and do strange things and the world doesn’t accept that.”
“There’s this deewangi that happens, and this character is a deewana.”
The photographs of the young man dressed in flowing clothes atop a camel were Photoshopped into images of historical monuments like the Minar-e-Pakistan and the Quaid’s mausoleum, their askew scaling having a jarring and disorienting effect.
Another installation she recently finished features military figurines set to a narrative of a man who “subverts from the agenda”. Abidi recollected how one can buy models of “dead Afghans, Iraqis and Palestinians” with labels such as “curious Arab” or “rock-throwing insurgent.”
‘Death at a 30 Degree Angle’ is about a subject closer to home. Even though it is set in India, around a fictional politician who wants to have a statue of himself made, it’s a subject that would resonate here too, given the numerous photos and posters of politicians in our cities. Abidi was inspired by former Utter Pradesh chief minister Mayawati’s statues and tracked down the 87-year-old sculptor Ram Sutar in Delhi. “I found him so much more interesting than my little idea,” she said. And he features in the installation as well. As the politician preens and tries different ideas for his statue - a shawl, a new pair of shoes - the film struck a chord around the room. Abidi is set to show it in India in December, where it will undoubtedly resonate even more strongly.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 19th, 2012.