What’s Hot? (April 3rd – 17th, 2011)

“What’s hot?” or should we ask, What’s hot now?  Since Andy Warhol popular culture has been equated with an ordinariness that is antithetical to bourgeois taste.  Whereas Warhol’s soup can symbolized “common” experience, Warhol himself claimed to partake of it.  In contrast, when local tropes of popular culture such as the truck art aesthetic, the mazar and the dhaba, are used, they have most often been external to the artists’ own realm of lived experience.   In the use of popular culture as muse then, a subliminal assertion of class affiliation is at play.  “What’s hot?” asked artists whose work reflected an interest in “the popular” (in terms of subject matter and/or materiality) to investigate, through their own particular subject positions, locales where contemporary popular trends perforate class boundaries.  The artists found these sites to be lawn prints, lace, Mills & Boon romances, the Urdu digest, cooking shows, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, green tea, Coke, and inescapably, religion.  

 Participating artists are: Sehba Maruf, Danish Ahmed, Sophia Mairaj, Malika Abbas, Sumaiya Jilani, Muhammad Ali.

  (click on each image for a larger view)

Danish Ahmed. Coke Mehrab (diptych). 2011. Silk screen and acrylic on canvas. 18in x 18in each



Danish Ahmed. Coke Jaali (diptych). 2011. Silk screen and acrylic on canvas. 18in x 18in each red dot

Danish Ahmed. Coke Gumbad (diptych). 2011. Silk screen and acrylic on canvas. 18in x 18in each

Sophia Mairaj. Khatoon ka Dastarkwhan. 2011. Digest cuttings on paper. 44in x 36in.

Sophia Mairaj. Cover Girl. 2011. Oil on canvas. 30in x 40in. red dot

Muhammad Ali. Green Tea without Sugar. 2011. Mixed media. Approx 23.5in x 49in

 

 

 

 

 

 

Muhammad Ali. Green Tea Without Sugar. Details.

 

 

 

 

Muhammad Ali. zubeida@live.com. 2011. Needlework on fabric. 27.5in x 30.5in.

Muhammad Ali. Table for Two. 2011. Mixed media. Dimensions variable. red dot

Sehba Maruf. Three in a Box. 2011. Collage. 6in x 19in.

Sehba Maruf. Circus of Madness. 2011. Collage. 32in x 26in.

Malika Abbas. Treasure Box. 2011. Mixed media on watercolor paper. Approx 29in x 16in.

Malika Abbas. Bandwagon Series 2. 2011. Mixed media on watercolor paper. Approx 7.5in x 7in.

Malika Abbas. Bandwagon Series 3. 2011. Mixed media on watercolor paper. Approx 7.5in x 7in.

Malika Abbas. Bandwagon Series 4. 2011. Mixed media on watercolor paper. Approx 7.5in x 7in.

Malika Abbas. Bandwagon Series 5. 2011. Mixed media on watercolor paper. Approx 7.5in x 7.25in.

Malika Abbas. Bandwagon Series 6. 2011. Mixed media on watercolor paper. 7.5in x 7in.

 Malika Abbas. Bandwagon Series 1. 2011. Mixed media on watercolor paper. Approx 7.5in x 5in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Sumaiya Jillani. T-shirt (front and back). 2011. Screen print on cotton t-shirt. Edition 1 of 6.