Karachi-based artist Amin Gulgee’s three-decade-long oeuvre spans metallic sculptures, daring efficiency artwork, and collaborative curation. A well-structured new quantity on his work, titled Amin Gulgee: No Man’s Land and edited by John McCarry, is neither totally educational nor a listing raisonné; it balances the 2 approaches with loads of photos, candid writings penned by Gulgee’s artwork comrades, and overly transient semi-scholarly essays. I’ll borrow author H. M. Naqvi’s phrases from his personal partaking essay on Gulgee’s extravagant performances: The opulently illustrated hardcover “demands attention,” as does the artist himself.
Right here’s why: Solely a handful of books have offered a important discourse on Gulgee’s stimulating artwork apply. Within the seminal 1998 guide Picture and Identification: Fifty Years of Portray and Sculpture in Pakistan, the late Pakistani artwork historian Akbar Naqvi hinted at his disdain for the artist’s characterization of his personal work as “Islamic art.” Twenty-six years and several other catalogs later, No Man’s Land amends this hole by revealing pluralistic views on Gulgee’s work.
Amin Gulgee, Reminiscence Backyard (2024), set up of seven copper sculptures at Nationwide Museum of Qatar (photograph Nageen Shaikh/Hyperallergic)
Amin Gulgee, “Non-binary Cube” (2022), copper and metal (photograph by Humayun Memon, courtesy John McCarry)
From couture jewellery and biomorphic kinds to mathematical and monumental constructions, Gulgee’s copper works illustrate his mastery of fabric and approach. His textured self-portraits are self-deprecating. The smoother calligraphic designs are soothing. Invoking spirituality and science, they current an exigent engagement between Islamic and South Asian custom and fashionable artwork by means of what artwork historian Kishwar Rizvi calls a “range of formal strategies, on his own terms” in her essay. Scholar Simone Wille additionally writes concerning the modular qualities of Gulgee’s sculptures, like “Metropolis II” (2006) and “Towers” (2008), that are made by welding copper sheets and meant to be seen from all sides. Sadly, each essays add little to present views on the artist and ended abruptly. I craved extra.
In the meantime, in a refreshing interview, curator Maryam Ekhtiar asks the artist pertinent questions on his fascination with sculpture, scale, and the results of the COVID-19 pandemic on his apply. Gulgee demystifies his course of: He doesn’t sketch. The sculptures are created intuitively in his studio, the place he’s “beholden to his process.” He doesn’t take commissions as a result of they cage his inventive license. He counts the Mughal charbagh or cross-axial backyard, Louise Bourgeois’s “Spider” (1996), Karachi’s disappearing botal gali or bottle road which will get its identify from retailers promoting fragrance bottles, verses from the Qur’an, and Gaudi’s Park Güell in Barcelona amongst of his inspirations. Notably, the artist recollects the trauma he endured within the wake of the 2007 murders of his dad and mom — the internationally famend artist Ismail Gulgee and his spouse Zaro. He displays on discovering recuperation by means of performative works like “Healing” (2010), through which audiences watched as Gulgee’s fellow artists shaved his head. He reenacted the efficiency as Therapeutic II within the midst of loss of life within the pandemic, this time with out onlookers.
From Amin Gulgee, “Healing II” (2020) (screenshot Hyperallergic, used with permission of the artist)
A heartfelt word by the artist, printed adjoining to a drawing, “Portrait of My Son (1982), sketched by the senior Gulgee, informs us that the guide’s contributors — comprising artists, curators, artwork historians, a political scientist, and an writer — got no restrictions on their essays. That freedom facilitated distinctive approaches: a unusual essay by artist-curator Alexi Value, who playfully mentions Gulgee’s eccentric social antics, and a bit by educational Gemma Sharpe putting his efficiency in dialog with that of different Pakistani artists reminiscent of Durriya Kazi and the late Ali Imam, in addition to Marina Abramović.
It speaks volumes concerning the values of prioritizing industrial success over important inventive discourse in Pakistani publishing that, regardless of Gulgee’s affect, No Man’s Land is the primary complete monograph on the artist. It definitely shouldn’t be the final.
Amin Gulgee: No Man’s Land (2025), edited by John McCarry, is printed by Skira and is obtainable on-line and thru unbiased booksellers.
