How is violence contextualised in our art and how it should
A few years ago, when I was helping with the selection of art works for a big group show at a public gallery in Lahore, I spotted a small canvas with expressive marks made in dark red amongst other paintings. The fluidity of strokes and the thickness of colour caught my attention and I proposed to display it at a prominent place.
Two weeks later, I was surprised to see the same painting was a part of presentation of another artist’s talk and she was showing the process of its making. Contrary to the popular practice of using brush and oil paint, the work was created in an unusual manner. A chicken was slaughtered and while it was struggling for its life, the blood emitting out of it was thrown on a blank canvas. Hence what had caught my attention was not the residue of a brush loaded in paint on a surface but blood from a creature in its death throes.
The real surprise came later while discussing this work with an artist and listening to how he denounced and rejected the painting made in this painful method. That got me thinking about this convenient neglect to thousands of other animals and birds butchered to cook delicious dishes, at home and for wedding receptions, political meetings and official dinners. I realised how we all enjoy a nice meal made out of meat without being bothered about the origin of our non-vegetarian cuisine. And yet we are prepared to criticise an artist who employs the same method of butchering an animal for the sake of art.
Perhaps because we think that killing a creature to feed a hungry stomach is allowed while doing it for the purpose of making art is a frivolous endeavour. Thus, we create and maintain a distance between life and art, forgetting that art is a part or shadow of life, a reflection that is often painful, unacceptable and unbearable.
The fascination for violence of any kind seems embedded in human spirit and in some cases societies have tried to cure it by channelising it. In the so-called developed countries, the popularity of video games based upon ferocious actions as well as sale of toys such as guns, tanks, fighter plans and soldiers betray man’s hidden drive for barbarity. Thus, it is not surprising when we spot images of brutality in works of art, both from the past and in contemporary times.
There have been innumerable works based on religious, mythological and secular themes where blood is represented either sparsely or in abundance. From the paintings depicting Jesus’s crucifixion to scenes of battles between different nations and tribes, galleries and museums of European art are loaded with brutish subjects.
In comparison to European art history, our contemporary art went through a visible shift, with artists portraying mayhems of various kinds in their works, especially after 9/11 when Muslims were associated with acts of barbarity. Thus one finds traces of blood, butchery and bomb blasts in the art from Pakistan. Artists’ preference for blood (besides being attracted to its crimson colour) can be traced in the primordial passion for violence. More than that, they are commenting on the current conditions in which terror is tied to Muslim fundamentalists, despite several examples, some very recent, of savagery in the history of all societies and religions.
There is a difference in terms of examining historic cruelties among the practitioners of art from various cultures. In places like Germany and other countries with bloodied past, artists and writers have been dealing with violence as a subject for self-reflection rather than societal absolution. One can witness the same sense and sentiment in the works produced by creative individuals belonging to the countries associated with religious extremism, even if some of them are addressing the matter for the consumption of Western audience. This, by no means, denies the fact or presence of political and religious barbarism in our midst; only its depiction sometimes becomes decorative or exotic.
The artists and writers who are focusing on contemporary violence may explore violence from their history, like the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, which is observed every year by self-flagellation and beating oneself with knives till the body starts bleeding (all this takes place exactly a month after Eid ul Azha associated with animal sacrifice).
There is a great example of Marsiya (elegy) by Mir Anees and Mirza Dabir, who composed verses of highest quality, reverberating this incident. Then there is fiction of Quratulain Hyder, Intizar Hussain and Rahi Masoom Raza who employed Muharam carnage as a metaphor to address contemporary situations. But, in our visual arts, one scarcely finds references to this important event of Muslim past (although there are some who have addressed this incident, like video work ‘Ashura’: This Blood Spilled in My Veins, 2002 by Jalal Toufic, the Lebanese writer, film theorist and video artist).
Arguably, if our artists decide to deal with the violence from the beginning of Muslim history, they may also be able to internalise and contextualise the terror of our times.