‘The News’ 2006 by Bani Abidi. M anzar: Art and Architecture from Pakistan,1940s to Today, a recently opened exhibition, organised by the Art Mill Museum at the National Museum of Qatar, Doha, is remarkable for a particular reason. An exhibition is usually focused on works of visual arts, or concentrates solely on the practices and examples of architecture, but curated by Caroline Hancock, Aurelien Lemonier and Zarmeene Shah, Manzar, which can be translated as a scene, a landscape or a perspective, affords an unprecedented multi-disciplinary view of creative manifestations from the history of Pakistan since 1940s.
A few miniature paintings dating as far back as mid-16th Century are also part of the show. The exhibition is “a selection of approximately 200 paintings, drawings, videos, sculptures, installations, tapestries and miniatures” which “present multifaceted modernities and contemporary practices.” In order to introduce a wider narrative, the display also includes valuable archives, i.
e. , facsimiles of official documents: a Pakistani passport; photographs of historical moments including the 1947 migration, the 1971 war and of women’s rights demonstrations during Zia-ul Haq’s military dictatorship; reproduction of newspapers and magazine pages, exhibition catalogues and related publications including the cover of Anwar Jalal Shemza’s Urdu novel, Lala Rukh’s protest posters and Sadequain’s hand-drawn announcement for his solo show in Karachi. Divide.
