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KARACHI: With a collection of at least 20,000 clippings of art reviews that the late Syed Ali Imam had gathered over a period of three decades, a visual arts database set up in the city is a precious reference and source material not just for researchers but also for ordinary art lovers.
The late Ali Imam was a prescient curator, avid art lover and an artist right out of the top drawer. Like all creative people whatever he created was dear to him. At the same time, a kind of a rarity in our neck of the wood, he never showed stinginess in appreciating the effort of other artists and valued their work.
Critics mattered to him as much as those who would be critiqued. Therefore he was in the habit of collecting reviews which appeared in different newspapers of the exhibitions organised at his Indus Gallery.
The Foundation for the Museum of Modern Art (Fomma) has undertaken many projects to promote and study art in the country. One such venture is the setting up of the visual arts database which contains a selection of nuggets published in different newspapers on the subject of art.
The Fomma Trust has assembled the clippings of art reviews that Ali Imam used to collect on a regular basis. He would do it with such regularity that Fomma was able to put together no less than 20,000 of them.
The late artist gathered these pieces over a period of three decades, that is, between 1971 and 2002. They’ve been sorted out artist-wise in 200 spiral-bindings, apart from being transferred on CDs. The database is a treasure not just for art history researchers but also for ordinary art lovers.
If you’re familiar with the local art scene, you’d be surprised to see an old review of the known artist Naheed Raza’s work penned by Musarrat Nahid Imam for a monthly magazine. If that doesn’t amaze you, Niilofur Farrukh’s piece on Bashir Mirza written in 1996 surely would.
It’s a stellar cast of creative individuals ranging from Anna Molka Ahmed to Lubna Agha and from Zubeida Agha to Wahab Jaffar and equally sparkling appraisals of their work.
Honorary Secretary and Director General Fomma, Jalaluddin Ahmed says, “Ali Imam was a great art educator. These clippings provide you with a great reference source. But most of all they give you a sense of history. How can you have a sense of art history without knowing your history?”
Indeed, it is hard to dispute the argument. Interestingly ever since Ali Imam passed away, art has flourished in the country. As far as art history goes, there’s still a lot to be achieved.
