Away from our strict specific paths, one does occasionally encounter extraordinary or parallel realities, like in Murakami’s novels. I experienced this while travelling from Islamabad to Lahore on the motorway (M2), on the morning of Nov 1, 2018. motorway is a safe, elevated road, detached from local problems. Once you cross the toll point, you enter into a zone without ordinary concerns and conflicts, till you reach the exit gate. Then you face another reality, invincible and unavoidable, no matter which city, towns or village you exit from.
But more than a dream come true, motorway is a dream suspended. This was particularly felt after the Supreme Court’s decision on Aasia Bibi’s case that caused chaos and burning of cars, buses, vans, shattering of windscreens of many vehicles, and clashes between the police and mobsters.
Arduous and hazardous, the journey was eye-opening to say the least. It gave an opportunity to understand the divide between the world of art which aims to capture reality (not only visual but inner too) and the actuality of our existence. To me, at that moment, it seemed that every man with beard, turban, and ankle high shalwar was out to disrupt the normality of life. Till I started conversing with one such man and realised that he was a peaceful person, cursing the agitators and wanting to reach his congregation in time. He was a member of the Tablighi Jamaat, a group that believes in preaching through non-violence.
The day not only shattered my nerves, it altered my views on reading reality, especially in distinguishing religion from violence. We who assign separate roles to each ‘type’ -- militant, extremist, fundamentalist, liberated, progressive, modern, enlightened, speculative -- actually live in and through generalisations and simplifications.
This was evident on the eve of Dec 7, 2018, the opening of the solo exhibition of Imran Mudassar at the Taseer Art Gallery, Lahore. The work dealt with extremism of religious groups and how they have turned Islam (literally meaning peace) from an ideal course of life to a militant doctrine. The artist has been investigating the link between religion and terrorism for some years. Through his use of objects of worship, motifs from sacred texts, outlines of weapons and ammunition, he creates a narrative that communicates the turmoil of our times. For instance, the reign of Taliban in Afghanistan and its impact, influence and reach within Pakistan, especially the subjugation of women, persecutions of Shias and cruel punishments.
The title of Imran Mudassar’s show is Talibilm: The Student, implying how the seeker of knowledge (meaning of Talibilm) has become the most feared representative of bigotry in our age. Perhaps this exhibition was a perfect meeting point for the artist and the gallery, since Imran Mudassar spent a year (2013-14) with the Tablighi Jamaat while the gallery is named after Salmaan Taseer who was killed by his guard on a blasphemy allegation.
Beyond his personal memories of spending months with the Tablighis, Mudassar’s work offered a general and generalised view of religion and terror in more ways than one; to the extent that it appeared as a pattern, though beautiful and remarkable. The artist has demonstrated his skill in anatomical details and putting them on paper, employing the tools of pictorial language: shape of heart, silhouette of a helicopter, outlines of arches in a religious building, and contours of a man either in his shorts, or a boy wearing a prayer cap and holding a holy book.
Let’s just get the skill sorted out first. In terms of his ability to delineate human body, architectural details, and use of gold leaf in his compositions, Mudassar has perfected his technique. But like technique, his themes have also become a recurring set of visuals, which can be pasted here and there. The artist appears to be comfortable with his past images, techniques, mediums and obsessions.
Question is whether the artist’s subject or his focus of attention has something else to offer -- to him and subsequently to viewers. In the exhibition, there were large golden and blackened hearts overpowering (hiding) heads of youthful figures, a dark heart fixed between two male bodies, or young students with caps and books underneath an arch. All these images, carefully created in a sense convey the artist’s concern about the circumstances of a country that has withstood the consequences of fundamentalism in every sphere of life and yet survived.
Like the news, reporting in press, footage of Taliban that looks dated, the work of Imran Mudassar may appear irrelevant. It invokes the question: whether the work emerging out of an issue that is resolved loses its relevance or not. It doesn’t if and when the art transcends immediate reportage and converses with new times. Many artists have encountered this situation; yet they moved beyond by shifting their mediums and messages. Something that has not happened with Mudassar.
One feels that given the craft of composing body, human organs, objects from a religious system, elements from sacred structures (in his work on display), only if the artist had read the newspaper, he would have shifted from this set of imagery and concern. In most cases, the Taliban or other fundamentalist organisations have not been able to capture the minds of large population. However, they have held some artists’ imagination hostage who are kind of stuck in that condition, and are unable to move beyond or away.
One recognises this feature in Imran Mudassar’s one-person show, where the works looked perfect, but to describe them fully one needs to borrow a phrase of Martin Amis about Joseph Heller, whose novels "simply refuse to get better".