Description: This book explores modern art in Pakistan and its innovative interpretation of 'space since the country's independence. It shows that modernism and artistic subjectivity have been shaped by numerous lineages, including the colonial era and its legacies, and is a product of South Asian Islamic culture.
Review Quotes:
'Simone Wille's research has carefully traced a focused, influential trajectory of modern and contemporary artistic practice in Lahore . . . Revelatory and distinctive.' -- Iftikhar Dadi, Cornell University
'[A]n innovative study which analyses the position of modern and contemporary art of Pakistan within the traditions of South Asia and modern globalisation. It is essential reading for experts in these fields but also . . . for those interested in the artistic developments of our times within the Islamic world and beyond its boundaries.' -- Ebba Koch, University of Vienna
'What many Pakistani artists have accomplished through art practice finally finds a parallel in art historiography . . . Wille compellingly places modern and contemporary Pakistani art within the space of global modernism and art discourse without losing its specificity.' -- Parul Dave Mukherji, Jawa harlal Nehru University
'The artist Zahoor ul Akhlaq (1941-99) is the core of Wille's original and insightful Modern Art in Pakistan...This book is illustrated in color, which is welcome since many of the artworks have rarely if ever been published. Summing Up: Recommended. All readership levels.'
--S. Khullar, University of Washington, CHOICE
"The book "Modern art in Pakistan" is a valuable reference to understand artistic practice in Pakistan, after the partition of the subcontinent back in 1947. Its author is Simone Wille, an independent art historian, writer and researcher currently based in Austria, whose research has basically focused on the development of contemporary art in Pakistan...this book offers interesting insights on the particularities of modern Pakistani art in relation to different disciplines from history to culture, politics and society. An excellent reading for those fascinated with history of art in general and modernist art in South Asia and in Pakistan in particular."
- Patricia Ordóñez de Pablos, The University of Oviedo, International Journal of Asian Business and Information Management