MANZAR exhibition in doha charts pakistan’s creative evolution
Pakistan’s Doha Manzar exhibition highlights 77 years of artistic development.
‘Manzar Exhibition’ features the contributions of painters, photographers, architects, writers, and archivists shaping Pakistani narratives since the 1940s. This show examines Pakistan’s national identity, political changes, and social movements, alongside its aesthetics. How art influences and reflects a nation’s history is the focus here. I support its ambitious goal.
Many suggest reading a state-mandated history book to grasp a nation’s history. My school history books weren’t helpful at all. I recommend the arts for your query. We have books, music, art, architecture, and more.
A dusty textbook can’t capture a nation’s struggles, successes, and hidden truths. Stories were created and shared by people. Manzar Exhibition shows this—we’ll discuss it soon.
CAP showcased at ‘Exhibition Manzar ’
Prior and subsequent
As guests enter the exhibit, Ali Kazim’s stunning The Conference of Birds welcomes us. Kazim’s birds search for the elusive Simurgh. The colours are simple, but the expectations are high, like a new nation finding its identity.
‘Manzar Exhibition’ explores how a nation’s history shapes its art, even with its flexible timeline. After participating in the Lahore Biennale, architect Raza Ali Dada created ‘Manzar’s’ winding layout, which co-curator Caroline Hancock describes as a mix of avenues, alleys, dead ends, streams, detours, sky jumps, and deep dives.
That’s one way to do it. This fits well with Pakistan’s unstable political and social environment, which has influenced its art for years. Our work is both caustic and delightful, approachable yet remote, logical yet irrational, much like our nation and ourselves. Art reflects the contradictions of a country and its people. This area has discussions about the past, a changing present, and an uncertain future.
At the show, curators showcase Salima Hashmi’s triptych Zones of Dreams, depicting ‘Manzar’s playground’ with a gritty image of South Asia and its borders.
The show’s first segment explores Pakistan’s creative heritage before Partition. Ustad Allah Bakhsh’s Sohni Mahiwal showcases Punjabi romance, while Abdur Rahman Chughtai’s miniatures and Zainul Abedin’s works depict rural life. These pieces showcase the Subcontinent’s rich history and culture, using art to link land and identity.
Could the curators have launched the exhibition sooner? Maybe. Pakistani art has a rich history that predates Islam by millennia, contrary to what traditional textbooks suggest. It seems the curators wanted to keep the exhibition’s narrative in check, capping its start at 1947 to avoid it spiralling out of control. It turned out better in the end.
The displayed works go beyond just canvas. The book Amal-e-Chughtai, featuring Allama Iqbal’s Urdu and Persian poetry along with Chughtai’s illustrations, is displayed behind glass. Just 275 copies of this 1968 book were made. Great discovery. Chughtai’s logo for Pakistan Television showcases his versatility beyond painting.
View From the Tropic of Illegitimate Reality, Plants 5, and Zahoorul Akhlaq’s Untitled (1975) | Kuzey Kaya Buzlu photographs.
We need Pakistan before PTV.
This is the region’s pivotal moment. ‘Manzar’ transitions to 1947, featuring Zarina Hashmi’s evocative Dividing Line and Bani Abidi’s The News. The latter uses two boxy TVs side-by-side to explore the lasting impact of the Pakistan-India divide and the trauma of Partition.
I met Noor Ahmed, General Manager of Citizens Archive of Pakistan. A few days ago, we ran into each other as our plane landed at Doha’s Hamad International Airport at dawn. We were both sleepy. She hinted at CAP’s exhibit plans.
Manzar Exhibition features some of its best sections in the archival material. The CAP display features replicas of the first Pakistani passport, visuals of division-related deaths, and an audio clip of Mustafa Ali Hamdani’s first Radio Pakistan statement at midnight on August 14, 1947. Noor states, “Nostalgia helps us connect with others.” This provides clear context about the events in Pakistan during the commissioning and production of a building or artwork.
David Alesworth’s Lawrence Gardens (Bagh-i-Jinnah) illustrates the colonial and postcolonial changes of Lahore’s famous park on a Kashan carpet, surrounding the CAP installation. Alesworth connects the Mughal-style extensions in Lawrence Gardens to a restored Afghan garden carpet, reclaiming the imperial narrative. Source: Map from 1915.
This reclamation by a Brit, who moved to Pakistan in 1987 and became a key figure in its art scene, shows that Pakistan’s art world welcomes any ‘outsider’ willing to engage with its contemporary issues, especially through collaborations like his with Durriya Kazi.
Architectural sketches and photos from the ’50s and ’60s.
A fresh generation
Post-1947, ‘Manzar’ examines Pakistan’s quest for an artistic identity independent of its colonial past, a goal it has yet to realise. In the 1950s and 1960s, as Pakistan modernised, artists such as Shakir Ali, Zubeida Agha, and Ahmed Parvez aimed to develop a new visual language. Pioneers blended Western abstraction with native insights.
Agha’s vibrant canvases and Ali’s Cubist works move away from colonial romanticism, embracing a modern, self-defined style that reshapes national identity through form and local art language.
As the country expanded, its artists did too. Ali Imam, Ahmed Parvez, Anwar Shemza, Murtaza Bashir, and Safi-ud-din Ahmed established the Pakistan Group in London. A captivating catalogue from the group’s 1958 exhibition at Woodstock Gallery, London, is also on display. Ali Imam established the Indus Gallery in Karachi in 1971, transforming the city’s art scene.
Sadequain’s ‘calligraphic modernism’ blended traditional Islamic calligraphy with the poetry of Iqbal, Ghalib, and Faiz, appealing to both local and global audiences through gestural abstraction.
Novelist HM Naqvi chats with architect Marvi Mazhar in front of Sadequain’s emotional paintings, minus his usual cigarette. Naqvi and Mariah Lookman’s video installation for ‘Manzar’, Behrupiya, clearly references Sadequain’s work.
Lookman utilises an 8mm film originally recorded for an interview with Sadequain, now decayed, to “create a conversation across time.” As the film’s charred remnants appear on screen, Naqvi and Kamran Bahalim provide a voiceover reading Sadequain’s rubayis and art critic Akbar Naqvi’s writings. The novelist states that Sadequain and Akbar Naqvi “speak to me, to us” in this exhibit.
Mariah Lookman Behrupiya
Country in change
Example: the division of East and West Pakistan. Art reveals insights about our past that school history classes often miss. Salima Hashmi’s striking Sohni Dharti captures the political and emotional divide of Bangladesh’s 1971 independence, reminiscent of Francis Bacon’s style. This art, made from newspaper clippings, reflects on the breakup of a nation.
The historical narrative of ‘Manzar’ is once again shaped by archival material, specifically the Dawn front page headlines from 1971. It illustrates how art and archives capture separation wounds and highlight the cycles of division that shape the region’s geopolitics.
Artists in the 1980s and 1990s embraced modernity while addressing Pakistan’s evolving socio-political landscape, including the fight for democracy, migration, urbanisation, and media. Zahoorul Akhlaq’s grid-based works blend microscopic techniques with modern abstraction, as shown in View from the Tropic of Illegitimate Reality, highlighting a transitional context. His work at the National College of Arts (NCA) produced some of Pakistan’s top artists.
Columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee referred to Akhlaq and miniaturist Bashir Ahmed as the “Sorcerer and his Apprentice.” Akhlaq’s early death highlights the nation’s senseless violence and the talent that is frequently squandered. Following the assassination of Akhlaq and his daughter Jehanara, Cowasjee, a close friend, remarked, “Bashir had consistently prepared Zahoor’s canvases.” He had to give him his final bath and take him to his grave.
Pakistan shares its cruelty and brutality with others. Rasheed Araeen authentically portrays the violence and racism faced by the Pakistani diaspora amid rising migrations, showcasing his creative flair. His art challenges norms, is bold, and doesn’t hold back.
One of his 1977 performance pieces at ‘Manzar’ was titled Paki Bastard (Portrait of the Artist as a Black Person), which mocks England’s creative establishment. Araeen’s Burning Connections series features images where the artist burns connections to protest the bigotry in Western art. Essential and instinctual.
Challenges to established traditions…
Mariah Lookman Behrupiya
Rethinking tradition
Pakistan’s neo-miniature art stands out as the highlight of ‘Manzar’. Pakistan’s top painters, both local and global, are neo-miniature artists known for their vibrant colours, diverse mediums, and meticulous detail.
The curators begin with 16th- and 17th-century miniature Mughal pieces by Balchand and Mir Sayyid Ali. This highlights the evolution of the art form and how today’s artists have broken these conventions.
Shahzia Sikander’s Explosion of the Company Man, displayed like an open book, critiques the imperial franchise by deconstructing popular imagery and reflecting on Indian painters’ “Company paintings” for the British. Sikander’s miniatures examine gender, identity, and power, challenging scale, shape, and content.
Huma Mulji’s Memory of a Pink and Huma Bhabha’s The Orientalist.
Invisible Border 5 by Khadim Ali reflects contemporary issues. Ali’s embroidery of the Simurgh and a dragon fighting over a crowd of angry protestors symbolises the struggle between good and evil. Ali was born in 1978 in Quetta to Afghan Hazara parents. His art addresses Afghanistan’s complex history and the impact of exile, prejudice, and cultural loss on millions.
Gen Ziaul Haq’s poor post-Soviet leadership harmed Pakistan’s social structure and its fragile ties with Afghanistan, just a year after Khadim Ali’s birth. Salima Hashmi documented Zia’s curtailment of women’s rights, while Lala Rukh challenged discriminatory laws through the Women’s Action Forum, demonstrating how art can oppose political turmoil and social injustice.
In the 1990s, the vibrant culture and fast urban growth of cities like Karachi led to a unique blend of popular and folk styles. Durriya Kazi and David Alesworth’s Very Very Sweet Medina humorously blends truck art with Pakistani cinema poster painting, examining themes of home and migration, from Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) journey to Medina to the many migrants in Karachi.
Memory Garden by Amin Gulgee
A blueprint for identity
Manzar Exhibition effectively integrates Pakistan’s architectural journey and development into the gallery, enriching the conversation about the country’s progress over the years.
Islamabad, created by Greek architect Constantinos Doxiadis, reflects Ayub Khan’s initial efforts in nation-building. The city’s grid design and architecture show a young state’s effort to merge modern ideals with national issues.
Interviews and architectural designs by Habib Fida Ali, Arif Hasan, Kamil Khan Mumtaz, Nayyar Ali Dada, and Yasmeen Lari show how architecture changed our towns.
Lari’s Heritage Foundation of Pakistan has set up a bamboo and palm frond shelter for flood victims at ‘Manzar’, next to the courtyard of Sheikh Abdullah Al Thani’s Palace at the NMoQ. Multidisciplinary artist Noorjehan Bilgrami has transformed a bamboo structure with elegance. Bilgrami and her team apply a 3,000-year-old resist and mordant printing technique on ajrak cloth for Nir Kahani [Indigo Story]. The bamboo frame, stained with natural indigo, is beautifully adorned with ajrak.
Amin Gulgee, whom I met days ago at Frere Hall during the Karachi Biennale, says he’s been having “artists for breakfast, lunch, and dinner” in Doha. His Memory Garden features seven copper structures in a courtyard, showcasing his unique take on calligraphic modernism. Gulgee’s sculptures soar like Ali Kazim’s birds in ‘Manzar Exhibition’.
Noorjehan Bilgrami’s Nir Kahani [Indigo Story] (right) and the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan’s Single Log Shelter Type 1 (left).
Art as a guide and mirror
I tell Adnan to check out the exhibition when he has time as I head back to the car. He’ll think about it. We talk about Pakistan’s future on the way to my hotel. Many Pakistanis, both in the country and overseas, doubt the future. It’s not his fault—cynicism is easy.
I wish that much of the art in my country was created from a place of optimism. I hope ‘Manzar’ reflects Pakistan’s art and architecture, showcasing both its achievements and tragedies. The exhibition highlights the country’s complex history and demonstrates how art influences national awareness and drives change.
I hope viewers at home can see it.
‘Manzar: Art and Architecture from Pakistan 1940s to Today’ is on display at the National Museum of Qatar until January 31, 2025.
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