How do we position the art of textile in the context of contemporary art making? The canons which dominated the ‘fine arts’ have, until very recently, excluded practices which did not fit comfortably within their precincts. In spite of lively and sometimes contentious debates, there was a firm line drawn between artisanal practices and those…

Today a whole generation of artists in Pakistan has dispensed with ‘received’ notions of ‘sculpture’ and they are in the process of assembling an idiom of ‘work-in-the-round’ which will be dramatically different from anything which preceded it This ‘new wave’ of sculpture sparkles with ideas; it is witty, insubordinate and ebullient. Ranging from the intensely…

At the Venice Biennale this year, the curators had made a deliberate choice– to stay clear of the love affair with technology.They chose instead  to invite visitors ‘to accomplish a journey from the belief that art still holds a promise of transformation’. Rosa Martinez,  curator for ‘Always a Little Further’ at the Arsenale site of…

You’re song A wished-for song Go through the ear to the center Where sky is, where wind, Where silent knowing, Put seeds and cover them, Blades will sprout Where you do your work.                                         Rumi The canons of ‘Fine Art’ practice in Pakistan are being challenged by a number of contemporary artists, mainly women, who find…