Faaria Rehman Salahuddin
The growing influence and understanding of art has given rise to a greater demand for more art displays. This is where Biennales become a game changer.
“Biennale” as the name suggests is an event that occurs every two years and is significant in the art world as the event is used to describe large scale national, country specific and international contemporary art exhibitions. With over 400 biennales happening all over the world, it has now become essential to have a greater understanding of them. Some famous ones include Documenta (Kassel, Germany), Istanbul Biennale, Sharjah Biennale with Venice Biennale – the oldest and grandest of all. These are large-scale exhibitions of contemporary art, named after their host city and typically government-funded and managed by combinations of public art museums, government agencies, and philanthropic supporters.
Lahore witnessed the first biennale in 2018 which attracted over one million visitors. The new decade has opened on 26th January with a much larger-scale second edition (LB02), spread over 11 primary sites across the length the breadth of the city of Lahore, and curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, President and Director of the Sharjah Art Foundation. This massive event, which is free for the public, opened with a grand ceremony at the Lahore Fort, inaugurated by the President of Pakistan, Dr Arif Alvi, in the presence of prominent citizens and several hundred art aficionados from several countries.
LB02 runs for 35 days until 29th February, hoping to attract over 3 million people and helping them rediscover the city and its heritage. The first edition of the Lahore Biennale had the participation of academics and artists from 11 countries including Sri Lanka, India, and Bangladesh, while this year in the second edition the curator has extended the regional-scale towards the Middle East and West Asia, involving more than 80 artists from over 40 countries. LB02 brings significant artistic forms and projects to Lahore, commissioning new works by artists who have not previously engaged with the city.
The artistic vision of Hoor Al Qasimi has explored the limits of human entanglement with nature and revisits traditional understandings of self and its cosmological underpinnings. The latter derives, in part, from astronomy, a discipline which made important strides between South and West Asia. For centuries, inhabitants of these regions oriented themselves with reference to the sun, the moon, the constellations. Lahore with all its grandeur of Mughal and colonial architecture, shrines, gardens interspersed with historical sites, attracts thousands of tourists each year.
Hoor Al Qasimi has utilised these locations to showcase contemporary art at each heritage site in an appropriate and sensitive manner while simultaneously adding Lahore to the international cultural calendar. LB02 is rooted in a tradition of intra-regional mobility of ideas, people, and lesser known ties such as migratory flora and fauna.
When putting together such a massive enterprise, Director LB02 Qudsia Rahim worked closely with the support and patronage of the Punjab Government (Department of Culture) and under the guidance of the Walled City of Lahore Authority (WCLA) and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) to ensure that our heritage sites are reinvigorated in the public imagination while making sure that each space is completely protected and preserved. It is essential to have several partners and sponsors to make it possible for such an event to materialize, when it is on such an epic scale. Primary among these was the support of forward looking corporates like HBL, which has been the lead supporter of LBF since its infancy (including LB01). Similarly the Babar Ali Foundation has been instrumental as a founding patron in supporting both editions of the Lahore Biennale. Other central supporters of LB02 include large and small enterprises impossible to list here but a large number of people have supported this massive event.
In his opening remarks at the inauguration, Chairman HBL, Sultan Ali Allana, emphasized the “need to commit to encouraging more spaces for public art so that the public can engage with the art to spark imagination and reflection and thus opening doors to new horizons.” “It is incumbent for societies to recognize the tremendous value of the arts and the need to honor and nurture artists,” said Mr. Allana.
LB02, “Between the Sun and the Moon”, beautifully rendered in Urdu, “darmiyaan e shams o qamar”, displays works of contemporary art throughout cultural and heritage sites across Lahore. These sites include the Summer Palace and Diwan e Aam in the Lahore Fort, Mubarik Haveli, Tollinton Market, Lahore Museum, the Punjab University College of Art & Design, the Punjab Irrigation Department, Bradlaugh Hall, Punjab Library, the Punjab Institute of Languages and Culture, Gaddafi Stadium, Alhamra Cultural Complex, and Pak Tea House. These sites will remain open to the public in normal working hours until 29th February.
A number of art critics, representatives of international museums, art collectors and advisors from all over the world came to Pakistan for the first time to witness this rebirth of Lahore as an international cultural capital on the world stage. Over 80 artists have participated in LB02 including Alia Farid, Diana Al-Hadid, Hassan Hajjaj, Haroon Mirza, Hajra Waheed, Simone Fattal, Anwar Saeed, Rasheed Araeen and the late Madiha Aijaz among others. Such events are an asset for the host country as thousands of craftsman, workers, artists, are engaged in the construction of the sites, art works and installations etc. It is also a prime attraction for cultural tourism. The adaptive reuse of such heritage sites for art activities can rejuvenate their importance in the public imagination.
Curator Hoor Al Qasimi has given a fresh twist to this year’s biennale. Countries with a colonial past continually grapple with histories that impact their self-view. By bringing artists from the Global South together on one platform, the curator encourages a fresh conversation that challenges entrenched positions in post-colonial societies. Art activities on the scale of Biennales also serve as a mechanism for urban renewal and economic growth.
Other than bringing in local and foreign tourism, events like the Lahore biennale with an open and free entry to the masses, directly endorse the country’s soft image and contribute to the growth of museums, galleries, and other cultural sites, forming non-traditional economic activity that can make an essential contribution to the GDP of the country.
Pakistan is home to some of the most creative artists in the world. By providing an international platform in Lahore for the arts, LB02 hopes to celebrate their creativity; help make connections between the global community of artists and art-lovers, and in doing so serve as an engine of growth for the city and the country.