Daily Times

LAHORE: Lahore will host the largest public art undertaking in the history of Pakistan in, which the common man will be engaged in art and art making.

The Lahore Biennale Foundation (LBF) announced in a press conference on Monday that LBF will organise the event in November 2017, in which thousands of people will play their role in art making.

The LBF is to host the Lahore Biennale every two years and will be Lahore’s largest and most ambitious public art undertaking in the history of the country. It will mark a new chapter in the arts and art-making, public engagement and partnership.

In traditional terms, the role of the artistic director is to create a vision and narrative for the biennale and Rashid Rana aims to create exhibitions and programmes catering especially to the shifting realities of Lahore.

LBF Chairman Osman Khalid Waheed commented, “LBF views art as not just an exercise in aesthetics, but as a vehicle for social engagement. The biennale is part of an ongoing effort to reclaim a space for the arts in the country’s public discourse and in doing so, help support a more balanced and humane society. Our hope is that the Biennale will leave a lasting footprint in the city that outlives the seven weeks of the event itself and will help revitalise a renewed engagement between the public and the arts.”

Osman Khalid Waheed further said that Lahore had been one of the capitals of arts, culture and letters and was a city of gardens and monuments. “Lahore is home to many prominent artists, cultural practitioners, music gharanas and art institutions. Contemporary arts scene is flourishing and is a very active part of the global discourse, but there is a void when it comes to art in its various forms and public engagement. The enrichment that comes about in our society through the arts is potentially within reach, but not quite realised. In this regard, the LBF aims to foster a sustained dialogue between the public and the arts in Pakistan and thereby reclaim a space for the arts within the national discourse.”

LBF Co-Founder & Executive Director Qudsia Rahim said, “The Lahore Biennale Foundation was formed two years ago in an effort to create opportunities for engagement with the arts both formally and informally, through the input of creative artists and citizens who work in socially responsible ways.”

On this occasion, Rana elaborated, “The objective is to produce something that has local and global relevance. The Biennale will be for people; projects will be located in the city, which will become part of the city in a much more meaningful way than just calling them public art. It aspires to be a biennale without walls, in every sense of the word.” The project, in addition to its primary focus on Visual Art practices, will also be sensitive to the versatility of the arts, which include but are not limited to, architecture, literature, performance, music, film and design, to name a few, while art education and outreach will be major components of the biennale as well, he added.

“The role of the artist in Pakistan is always blurry. We all end up fulfilling multiple roles,” Rana stated, adding further, “My art-making, exhibition-making and curriculum-making overlap and converge. To me, these different practices are all forms of production. I look forward to the Biennale being yet another exercise in creating.”

The officials of LBF said that Rana was not only one of Pakistan’s leading voices; his work and ideas are greatly influential in all of South Asia. He is grounded in the local context as much as in the global. The LBF believes Rana is the ideal person to bridge the gap and initiate a conversation between Pakistan and the rest of the world.

Art historian and academic Iftikhar Dadi commented, “In a city, country and region where non-commercial artistic and research projects have never been recognised and supported, LBF is poised to make an immense contribution in catalysing intellectual and artistic activity towards intelligent and sensitive interventions in public arenas.”

Devi Art Foundation Principal and art patron Lekha Poddar said, “We have had the privilege of working with Rashid Rana. He curated the show of Contemporary Pakistani Art at Devi Art Foundation titled Resemble Reassemble. He is indeed very innovative in his curatorial approach. His work at the Venice Biennale connecting the West to the East was indeed path breaking.”