Resemble Reassemble: Pakistani Art at Devi Art Foundation

The Devi Art Foundation in Gurgaon, India, hosted 'Resemble Reassemble' from January 17 to May 10, 2010. Curated by artist Rashid Rana, the exhibition featured 75 works by 45 Pakistani artists from the foundation's collection, spanning the last decade. Rana's own work was notably absent. The show avoided overt political references, instead presenting a thematic journey from grids to lines, needles to scissors, wounds to guns, and security barriers to a fragile paper house. Works included Mohammad Ali Talpur's drawing 'Leeka' (2006), depicting fine parallel lines interrupted by a horizontal crack, and Bani Abidi's 'The News' (2006), a two-channel video contrasting Indian and Pakistani news coverage of a petty theft. The final gallery featured chaotic installations: a water container moving hysterically in a wall, a Pakistani brass band playing off-key, and a menacing car horn over a plant. The exhibition highlighted a division in Pakistani art between traditional pictorial styles updated with postmodern irony and a new form aligned with international currents. Foundation owner Anupam Poddar noted the freshness of Pakistani art, similar to Indian art he collected in the early 2000s. The show suggested that Pakistani art benefits from relative isolation but risks creating facile works as international attention grows.