In a country like Pakistan where only a few people can be themselves, artists like م ح س ن whose work is not just about rendering pretty pictures are subjected to condemnation by politically correct liberals and held in suspicion by conservative fundamentalists. م ح س ن 's constant struggle to be himself and not be labeled something that he is not, makes him constantly look to blur the line between art, life and critique. He doesn’t want to be confined by social constrictions. He believes in questioning the "Status Quo" every single day in his life through artistic expression. As a Pakistani Muslim who is profiled at the airport for his bushy long beard to the queer Muslim who fears being shunned from the mosque held so dear to his heart and faith - Not just in his art practice in Pakistan but also throughout his life, م ح س ن has been dealing with the identity crises.
In Pakistan being opinionated and diverse means not fitting in the crowd, In Pakistani art world -its even worst. For the survival of the fittest, the artists have to follow certain trends in the art market, the galleries won’t represent you, and they would not showcase you if you end up exhibiting with their competitive galleries because of their in-house battle. Only certain artists usually from a certain class would end up showing in fairs, biennales and international shows because they would be the chosen ones by their underwriters. It’s not easy to be constantly producing art and to exhibit it if one doesn’t belong to a certain lobby or an art circle in Pakistan. Mohsin didn’t/doesn’t have any of that kind of patronage. He comes with no support system at all. His consistent shameless effort of asking art organizations locally and abroad kept him motivated and in last couple of years he has come a long way on his own.
Badly rejected by most of the Art galleries in Pakistan in the beginning of his career, its only after having an international stamp in his resume as an artist after unexpectedly getting an artist residency, م ح س ن was given chance to showcase his works in some group shows in Pakistan. ‘Twelve years later Art enthusiasts know him to be the eccentric artist who transcended boundaries of the two-dimensional picture frame as his hybrid forms protruding from their pre-owned paper backs collaborate with their architectural settings and dynamic colors and sing the anthem of their rare belonging to the very individualistic, م ح س ن .’[i]
In contemporary art, it is no longer easy to read the intentions of the artist, whose work carries with it a critique of social mores that is at least as important as the visual content of its imagery. م ح س ن is an exception. From his earliest appearance on the Pakistani art scene, his style was associated with wry self-irony, playful high colour, social satire, and an unembarrassed embrace of popular culture. Shafi's high-spirited performance of artist-as-not-quite-Everyman is sustained, however, by his warm, quirky empathy with the human animal in all its passionate vulnerability; as well, by his awareness of anguish, loneliness, and the melancholia of those disenfranchised for reasons of taste, class or life choice. Where his contemporaries from Pakistan are exhibiting in museums and art fairs around the world because of all the right connections, Shafi stands still with his ethics and values of self-support and continues to showcase at little settings that he finds intriguing and meaningful.
He is intrigued by the process. He uses all sorts of tools, techniques, surfaces and mediums to get my point across. Through a play with image, text, material, medium and milieu, Shafi attempt to communicate on different levels with multiple layers of meaning. He'd rather pose more questions than provide answers and hopefully, in turn create a deeper dialogue to expose the grey areas that become overshadowed by black and white moral codes.
‘Since 2013-16 Shafi’s works have travelled and exhibited themselves in over two dozen exhibitions nationally and internationally. The most mentionable of these being his local Solo show in 2014 called “’Sadaism’ (our-ism)” which in an outlandish, panic-stricken situation was taken off the walls after two hours of public viewing. Shafi had high hopes for this particular exhibition as it was in the modern city of Karachi often also regarded as the hub of Arts and culture in Pakistan’[ii]. ‘with its irreverent portrayal of political mandarins, the real wheeler-dealers of power were re-clothed with layers of collaged cutouts to reveal an image that was the sum of many ugly parts. A part of his Sadaism discourses, the show had stimulating optics in the vein of hard-hitting cartoons and TV parodies, but it found little tolerance and had to be shut down’[iii]
‘The entire series became a highly boisterous commentary on the fiasco that Pakistani Politics is and Shafi audaciously paraded them in mocking references. Little did he know that some orthodox Karachi locals would not appreciate this ‘blasphemy’ of the portrayed sacred and thus threatened the gallery to close the show or else they would. In an inexplicable two hours, all of Shafi’s players were asked to leave the venue without an applause.’[iv]‘Theproject took a year and a half to complete and was taken down within two hours. م ح س ن received death threats.’[v]‘Unfortunately, the media did not rise to the occasion and defend the right to freedom of expression.’[vi]‘To this day, this event was not officially mentioned anywhere leaving the artist in a questionable state forever so as to what and how it all happened.’[vii]The personal aspirations and anxieties of Shafi’s self-censorship became a subject of his works and resulted in some of the most arresting visuals across the Pakistani art world; though only a few ended up at some highborn people’s drawing room walls, mostly were burnt by the artist and a few were posted on social media after couple of years only when considered safe. ‘For him, pushing the limits of what society allows—like toying with politics and religion in a Muslim nation—hasn’t exactly gotten him into the country’s art mainstream.’[viii]
‘For م ح س ن, the making of his work is introspective and visceral. He is a storyteller, and each visual is presented as a chapter or a short story, the continuation to which the artist himself is curious to discover as much as the viewer anticipates.’[ix]‘The layered images and the contained three-dimensionality within the frames are the artist’s way of denoting political and religious veiling and social conformity. Our sexuality, gender, religious stance as well as our daily performative behavior is all regulated by those who we lend that power to. We censor ourselves despite our need to be out of control. The tongue in cheek humour is evident in the fantastical gestures and the activities that he pauses in his images.’[x]‘م ح س نi, from the time of his postgraduate studies, has been interested in exploring the link between the sacred and banal.’[xi]‘The artist has been questioning the social constructs in a culture which may have their basis in custom but not in religion.’ [xii]His work though is not a critique of religion or culture. His work in a general sense explores issues of state violence and how that violence resonates in the collective memory, how it forms and shapes communities, and by extension how it affects the individual.
Making art is cathartic for م ح س ن. It is an emotional and exhausting process to create these artworks for him. Although they seem steeped in artifice, glitter, and satire, it is a cry and proclamation of self-acceptance. Underneath the whimsy and the flamboyance, his artwork speaks of the anxieties of the repressed individual. His art is not about depicting everyday life frivolously; rather, it is injected with close observations and dark humour. His works exist as comments on the functioning of human relationships with each other and with society. His interest in the ordinary, his affinity towards the weaker and the broken, his nature of embracing the ones on the peripheries, all extends to his artistic language.
‘The celebration of beauty and the trappings of femininity are a recurring theme in his works. The value and significance of such images cannot be taken for granted.’5 ‘The author of numerous collages that recast the Pakistani dream of plenty in pansexual terms, م ح س ن, like so many artists of his generation, indulges in the era’s carnal abundance, and his appetites and experiences are reflected in the work, which alternates between the revealing and the puerile.’[xiii]‘It is hard to read the works’ titles without thinking of Shafi himself. Even the dogs have the same effect: Principles of savage energy, they frighten and endear, and one senses the artist’s identification with them. Shafi’s language, too, the titles he has inscribed in each work, while often salty and pungent, has the air of the found and familiar.‘[xiv]‘He is, in effect, rummaging through the society’s collective attic to create haunting visions that suggest both the tragedy of a fragmented history and a way forward, one that is recombinative and that merges the personal with the collective.’[xv]
The autobiographical element of م ح س ن ’s work is a starkly honest act of confession, which can be both provocative and moving. Working on themes like sexuality, masculinity and queerness and not been able to talk about it in one’s own country can very exhausting but he is a formidable art maker. Hefaces oppression, harassment, society's judgment and a wide array of discriminatory laws on everyday basis. ‘For Mohsin Shafi, power can be found and insisted upon; voice can be found in the individual and thus in his unique expressive power as an artist.’[i]
Shafi is a radical who dares to question convention and challenges what is considered acceptable. He is a visionary and a dreamer. Politicised by his own sexuality, by the violence and deprivation he had been subjected to, م ح س ن has recently been banned to teach at his Alma meter because of him having a liberal opinion on social media. Because of having no prior notice of hurling him from job that he was doing from almost seven years, currently he is struggling to pay his everyday dues and to this day all of his contemporaries have been hushed about it. ‘He stands firm on acceptance, inclusivity, and an experiential homogenization which for him are provided by these organically built, open, and undefined spaces where no questions are asked and no one is commented on. It is this aura of looseness, and of oblivion, that the artist projects before the viewers and immerses them into, in attempts to cast off the empty shell of what’s dead, and embracing the mysteries of what is yet to come.’[ii]
Such is a struggle for practicing Artist like م ح س ن in Pakistan, who’s dealing with self censorship on everyday basis and still living a fearful life where the system doesn’t accept him, the society doesn’t digest him and laws do not support him but he firmly believes that ‘The show must go on’.
Samia Ahmed
Associate Professor, Department of Fine Arts/ Incharge Archives
National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan.
Footnotes:
[i]Sarah Zahid, Amongst Sheep and other Creatures: The Quest and Conquest of Mohsin Shafi, Published in Nigaah Art, April 2016 issue- Vol.156
https://beingsarahzahid.wordpress.com/2016/07/21/amongst-sheep-and-other-creatures-the-quest-and-conquest-of-mohsin-shafi/
[ii]ibid
[iii]Nilofur Farrukh, Re-imagining Realities, Published in News Line, January 2015
http://newslinemagazine.com/magazine/re-imagining-realities/
[iv]Sarah Zahid, Amongst Sheep and other Creatures: The Quest and Conquest of Mohsin Shafi, Published in Nigaah Art, April 2016 issue- Vol.156
https://beingsarahzahid.wordpress.com/2016/07/21/amongst-sheep-and-other-creatures-the-quest-and-conquest-of-mohsin-shafi/
[v]Anne-Marie Harrison, Close Encounters, Published in Good times - Santa Cruz, August 2015.
http://goodtimes.sc/santa-cruz-arts-entertainment/close-encounters/
[vi]Nilofur Farrukh, Re-imagining Realities, Published in News Line, January 2015
http://newslinemagazine.com/magazine/re-imagining-realities/
[vii]Sarah Zahid, Amongst Sheep and other Creatures: The Quest and Conquest of Mohsin Shafi, Published in Nigaah Art, April 2016 issue- Vol.156
https://beingsarahzahid.wordpress.com/2016/07/21/amongst-sheep-and-other-creatures-the-quest-and-conquest-of-mohsin-shafi/
[viii]Anne-Marie Harrison, Close Encounters, Published in Good times - Santa Cruz, August 2015.
http://goodtimes.sc/santa-cruz-arts-entertainment/close-encounters/
[ix]Numair A Abbasi, Do you hear the music, Published in ArtNow – Pakistan, Issue August 2018.
http://www.artnowpakistan.com/do-you-hear-the-music/
[x]ibid
[xi]Quddus Mirza, The age of political imagination, Pubished on The News, April 12, 2015.
http://tns.thenews.com.pk/the-age-political-imagination/#.W6VTdy2B06g
[xii]ibid
[xiii]Aasim Akhtar, “A formidable art maker”, Published in Jang News Paper, July 2012,
https://jang.com.pk/thenews/jun2012-weekly/nos-03-06-2012/enc.htm
[xiv]ibid
[xv] ibid
[xvi]ibid
[xvii]Numair A Abbasi, Do you hear the music, Published in ArtNow – Pakistan, Issue August 2018.
http://www.artnowpakistan.com/do-you-hear-the-music/