Qatar Museums Presents Exhibition on Modern, Contemporary Visual Arts, Architecture from Pakistan

Doha, August 07 (QNA) - This November, Qatar Museums will open a first-of-its-kind exhibition exploring the arts and architecture from Pakistan since the 1940s, with "MANZAR: Art and Architecture from Pakistan 1940s to Today" to run from 1 November 2024 to 31 January 2025. The Exhibition is organised by the future Art Mill Museum and presented in collaboration with the National Museum of Qatar. MANZAR will bring together more than 200 artworks including paintings, drawings, photographs, videos, sculptures, installations, tapestries and miniatures, plus commissioned works by artists and architects currently living and working in Pakistan and its diasporas to present various views of the country's artistic and architectural movements. The artworks, programmes and events extend from the gallery spaces to the courtyard of the Palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al-Thani for a broad immersion in Pakistani art and architecture. The ground-breaking exhibition, designed by renowned architect Raza Ali Dada and un folding across twelve sections, will reveal how artists responded to and reimagined international modernist movements. MANZAR brings to light lesser-known global art histories and demonstrates how they weave into broader social and cultural trends. Through themed galleries dedicated to aesthetic experiments and calligraphy, nation-building, regionalism, neo-miniature, the urban vernacular, and the politics of land and water, among others, the exhibiton presents a perspective on arts from Pakistan through unprecedented loans from public institutions such as the Alhamra Art Museum in Lahore and Pakistan National Council of the Arts in Islamabad; loans from private collections across Pakistan and in Dubai, London and New York; as well as works from Qatar Museums collections. In this context, CEO of Qatar Museums Mohammed Al Rumaihi said, "By bringing the works of exceptional Pakistani artists and architects to Qatar, this exhibition affirms their contributions to their own nation and to the heritage of the wor ld." He also expressed his pride to present this exhibition in the galleries of the National Museum of Qatar, thereby emphasising the close links between Qatar and Pakistan, adding that it is an honor to provide an international platform for these hugely deserving artistic movements. In turn, Director of Concept for the future Art Mill Museum Catherine Grenier said, "This rigorous, scholarly exhibition looking at the significant practices of artists and architects from Pakistan and their connection to the wider history of modern and contemporary art reveals precisely how the future Art Mill Museum will be a vital centre for international modern and contemporary art. As MANZAR so vibrantly demonstrates, the aim is to engage global art histories since 1850 through exhibitions grounded in multidisciplinary and non-hierarchical histories. (QNA) Source: Qatar News Agency