Sculpting reality

exhibition

Recently, an art exhibition titled ‘Shab-o-Roz’

was held in Karachi. You! takes a look...

Creating a piece of art is no simple endeavour. It requires years of practice, patience and a lot of hard work. This stands true for all forms of art including sculpture, which requires one to think of a unique idea before finally putting it into practice. For those of you who don’t know, sculpture is a form of visual arts that operates in three dimensions. The processes used to create any piece of art originally includes carving and modelling in stone, metal, ceramics, wood and other materials. However, after the Modernism movement, a wide variety of materials were introduced in to this art form including metals. Wondering why we are so interested in sculptures? Well, recently an exhibition of sculptures by Fahim Rao was held at the Koel Art Gallery, Karachi. The artist’s passion and experience was evident in his pieces created with stainless steel, iron and brass. Read on to find out more...

The exhibition was titled Shab-o-Roz (which means day and night or the routine of life), where ten sculptures were on display. These pieces were created to showcase the artist’s interpretation of everyday life practices. The art works were carved to tell stories of our society, stories of lawlessness and of injustice.

The concept of many of the displayed works revolved around inequality, especially in the case of access to justice in Pakistan. Furthermore, Rao’s sculptures depicted the dual face of society that favours the rich over the poor and those who have ample resources at their disposal over those who have none. Through his work, he also portrayed a society where the wealthy are not obliged to follow road rules but the poor are penalised for the same offence because they are weak.

At the exhibition, one could see walls of the gallery decorated with pieces constructed from mixed metal in varying colours. What caught the eyes of the spectators were the white sculptures of four men bowing down in the signature ‘murgha’ pose, which is quite a common practice in schools. According to Fahim Rao, this was a way of explaining an experience from everyone’s lives and a memory from his own childhood where students were punished by being turned into ‘murghas’ by their teachers.

Apart from sculptures, the exhibition also included other interesting pieces. Peculiar and intricate forms were made out of brass, fibre glass, stainless steel and iron. While explaining how these abstract figures represented the concept of lawlessness and injustice, he said, “You can call them as my memories of how I have experienced life in our country.”

The exhibition was a visual treat and a creative reflection of the metropolis we live in. Such works of art are memorable not only because of the talent and skill that went into creating the sculptures, but also because they open one’s mind to the numerous issues that need to be highlighted. The fact is, we have become so accustomed to the conditions of our country that the ‘unfair’ circumstances don’t seem so odd anymore. However, exhibitions like these serve as astonishing eye openers and expose the suffering of the unheard and unseen.

Overall, the exhibition succeeded in forming an interesting yet ingenious blend of art and questionable societal norms, which hit all the right marks.