Adil Najam

There is a minor revolution underway in the world of Pakistani Art as a new generation of young artists are making their mark on the international scene with art that is distinctly Pakistani and pregnant with political content.

I should say that the only reason I know this is becasue of Hammad Nasar. Hammad runs the London-based not-for-profit arts organization Green Cardamom, which brings the works of artists in the early stages of their international careers to a global audience through exhibitions and publications.

I plan to have more on Hammad later, but one artist that Green Cardamom has been working with is Naeem Rana (two of whose artworks are displayed here). According to the Green Cardamom website:

Naeem Rana was born in Lahore. He received a BFA from the National College of Arts in Lahore and a Graduate Diploma in Visual Art from the Victorian College of Arts in Melbourne. Rana’s most recent solo show was at the Counihan Gallery in Brunswick, Melbourne. His work has been exhibited in Australia, Asia, Pakistan, the UK and the USA. His work is included in a number of private and public collections, including that of the South London Gallery.

Naeem is now based in Melbourne, Australia and according to the Australian website State of the Art:

Naeem Rana comes from a family of calligraphers, and Urdu calligraphy is an identifying feature in his work, which tends to be very bold in the manner of Indian and Pakistani movie posters, and is conceptually political. Embroiled in Rana’s images are political figures such as Saddam Hussein, Osama-Bin Laden and George Bush, whose impact on the region’s political, economic and social life has been disruptive to say the least.

I am particularly fond of these two pieces from Naeem (can't afford the originals so have electronic copies of both on my screensaver). I am not sure whether he meant them to be a set, but I have always wondered how Sher-i-Punjab would stack up against the Sher-i-Texas?

Pakistani police; originally posted on Flickr.com by themexican.

‘Thulley Raj’ is what some at my alma matter (UET, Lahore) would call this. But it is really so much more; and less.

I look at the body language, the facial expressions, the way they hold their laathis, that look in their eyes… and it is so much more than just good photographic composition… it is multiple layers of meanings and memory… some good, some not as much.

Following on from yesterday’s story about the US House of Representatives wanting to cut the aid package to Pakistan — because of “increasing lack of respect for human rights, especially women’s rights, and the lack of progress for improving democratic governance and rule of lawâ€Â? — the Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam insists that this decision is likely to be reversed. According to a report in The Daily Times (June 13, 2006):

… the Foreign Office said that the House of Representatives had approved the budget presented by the US government with a $2 billion reduction, which had caused a $150 million cut in aid to Pakistan. The cut had not yet been approved by the US Senate, she said. She said that the House of Representatives had proposed a similar cut last year, but the joint committee of the two houses had later restored the full aid to Pakistan. Pakistan hoped that the aid would be restored this year as well, she said.

She is probably correct in her assessment. But she misses the point entirely. Whether Pakistan does or does not get that $150 million is of little consequence to Pakistan, and even less to the US. The real news is that Pakistan just got a scolding from the US Congress. That was the intent of the resolution; after all, what is $150 million between friends!

Which brings me to the cartoon above, which I had originally published in 2003. The good part of things never changing is that one can always recycle this stuff–even political commentary!