The material of an ideal home
Farhan Siddiqui
In their latest work,to be displayed at 3rd Asia Pacific Triennial at
Brisbane Australia,
Durriya Kazi and David Alesworth's concern is to initiate a cross-
cultural and cross-social connection, comments Quddus Mirza
A late modernistic approach in art concerns not the making of the
object itself, but discovering the possibility of art in anything,
based purely on the whims and decisions of the artist. This practise
has shifted the emphasis from the object of art to the personality of
the artist. The role of artist is not of a 'creator' but of a mediator
between the material and the audience. In the recent Pakistani art this
happening took another turn with the efforts of the artists to include
the product of 'low art' in 'high art'. In our context the low art
consists of popular paintings on cinema hoardings or on buses, and
decorations on public vehicles. The high art, on the other hand, is the
work produced by the formally educated artists, and displayed in the
gallery.
The phenomenon of merging local aesthetic products into high art
emerged in the early nineties here, primarily by the artists who
returned home after some period of training abroad, and started looking
at this side/site of culture (which was in existence for almost past
fifty years) as some kind of exotic work. The amalgamation of two was
not by any means devoid of power relations, as it was a one way
traffic, of 'artist' using/abusing this aspect of local popular art.
Two artists Durriya Kazi and David Alesworth, both sculpt and make
collaborative work, adopted another behaviour towards the indigenous
aesthetic expression -- somewhat politically correct. It is not picking
and appropriating the images of local art/craft but working with their
makers, respecting their decisions and responding to their suggestions,
to reach at a final state of the art product. An example of this is the
most recent work by Durriya Kazi and David Alesworth, an installation
titled 'Very Very Sweet Medina'. Both the artists will represent
Pakistan with this work in the 3rd Asia Pacific Triennial beginning on
September 9, '99 at Brisbane in Australia.
The installation consists of six pieces, made of images and materials
from the popular urban art such as film posters and truck decoration.
All of these are constructed as vertical boxes with accompanying sound
and text. Each of these letter box like structure is attached to a
circular board, painted by the cinema artist in his own style. The
images on these paintings are of loving couples, dancing actresses, big
mansions and household utilities like television, washing-machine,
iron, camera, phone, clock and other commodities which can be
identified with the lavish ways of living such as air travel and
excessively decorated living rooms. This ideal combination often
intruded with the images of people holding a bloodied knife or a gun.
The motif of heart appears in each box, along with the flickering
lights and recorded whisperings of various people, describing their
ideas of a perfect home. This is added with written answers and drawn
pictures, provided by people from every sphere of life, put into racks
and folders.
The installation 'Very Very Sweet Medina' is about documenting the
concept of home existing in each person's mind. The image of home, an
ideal home, is essential to everyone's life. Home is not confined to an
assemblage of spaces, constructed with masonry, it is the embodiment of
hopes for the perfect future. Majority of the population here lives in
dream houses, only a few succeed in materialising these into brick and
mortar structures. For most, the ideal home remains in the state of
desire and longing. The features of the ideal home stem from the social
structure of our surroundings and manifest in various forms of culture
for instance popular poetry, embroidery, and most prominently in the
sets and advertisement hoardings made for films.
The work of Kazi and Alesworth is an attempt to illustrate the idea of
home by incorporating these images in the installation as well as
inviting people to speak, write and draw about their notion of perfect
home. Thus making each piece a substitute for the imaginary home. The
title 'Very Very Sweet Medina' alludes to the history of early Islamic
period, when the Holy Prophet (PBUH) adopted Medina as the perfect
haven for the newly converted muslims.
The work which will be part of this prestigious international show, has
another significance with reference to art-making in Pakistan. The
system of art here is dominated by the market economy of galleries and
private buyers. Majority of the artists, working with diverse idioms,
are producing objects that can be purchased. According to the
established hierarchy, the genre manufactured in the studio by the
artist -- trained at the institutions -- and consumed by the
connoisseurs, is appreciated as high art. Due to the rise in the status
of artist and simultaneously the prices of art-work, the artists,
viewers and collectors form a small exclusive group, detached from the
public. It is only a recent and rare occurrence that any work of art is
made with the participation of and catered for the public.
Through their previous works and the present installation, Durriya Kazi
and David Alesworth seek to collaborate with the public in bringing the
activity of art at the threshold of common people. The work in its
formation is not a combination of images to be seen, but incites the
involvement of the viewers in various ways, to ultimately transform
them into participants. This happens by inviting them to inscribe their
ideas of perfect home (a ritual started in Karachi and will be
continued in the show at Australia). This process of interacting with
them and their desires, to some extent, stirs up their feelings about a
suitable living space and the realisation of not having one. But
perhaps this is the function of art; to forge a vision of reality and
present it in order to raise questions about the most sensitive issues,
instead of providing any solution or comfort.
The particular method of construction in 'Very Very Sweet Medina'
evokes concerns about the sacredness/originality of the art object and
the signature/role of the artist. The work, commissioned by the
Queensland Art Gallery and conceived by the artists, Durriya Kazi and
David Alesworth, is in reality executed by different individuals, each
specialist in cinema painting, truck decoration, electric work or wood
and metal work. Kazi and Alesworth played the part of someone who
facilitates the act of converting people's aspirations into a visual
product. The work went through many changes, like any work of art,
without the artists' order but through the suggestions from people
involved. It assumed its final shape with the input of participating
craftsmen.
The most significant aspect of this collaboration (which continuously
changed the positions of power in the cycle of gallery--artists--
craftsmen) is that it bears the signatures of each person who
contributed in its making. Thus invalidating the concept of the mark of
the artists hand and the division of classes of artists and artisans.
The installation 'Very Very Sweet Medina' executed in Karachi to be
completed in Brisbane, is an attempt to bridge the differences between
high and popular art, the ethnic differences, the classification of
artist and artisan as well as the boundaries between cultures and
continents. Understandably, this cannot be achieved fully, but the idea
of making art to initiate a cross-cultural and cross-social connection
is a concern desired by both artists. The act of experiencing this work
which was conceived and executed at a specific place and is to be
viewed and completed in a different region/context, may help to bring
close the similarities in focus or distill the differences which are in
any way forms of similarity.
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