Ali Kazim

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Ali Kazim

Untitled (‘Ruins’ Series), 2024
Graphite on paper (3 sheets)

7’ x 14’

Commissioned in 2024 by Lahore Biennale Foundation

Untitled ( Fallen Objects series), 2019

Terracotta shards, epoxy resin 45x50x45cm

Untitled (‘Ruins’ Series) is an ongoing series of works on paper inspired by long walks around unexcavated archeological sites in and around Lahore. Kazim meticulously reproduces each of them in Siyan Qalam, a form of Persian miniature painting, thereby connecting two crafts of clay and ink from different timelines. The artist creates a fictive landscape strewn with these real archeological pieces, evoking a collective portraiture of the people who once resided in the region, and who made use of the natural resources of the environment. Their heritage spawned a succession of different civilizations. These civilizations have come and gone, leaving the landscape in place.

Extending the artist’s imagined reconstruction of peoples past, Untitled (“Fallen Objects” Series) collects broken pieces of ceramics materials (shards) found on the ground, reconstituting these fragments into an seeming whole excavated from some long-buried city. These shards hint at the ancient pottery work that was the material foundation of the ancient Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, some of the earliest Bronze Age civilizations to inhabit the Indus Valley millennia ago. 

 

Ali Kazim (b. 1979) lives and works in Lahore.  He received his BA from the National College of Arts, Lahore (2002) and his MFA from the Slade School, London (2011). Drawing on the art and history of South Asia, including its miniature painting and ceramics traditions, Kazim creates layered, textured watercolor portraits and landscapes with forensic finesse. Kazim has exhibited in international institutions, including Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, Art Sonje Center in Seoul, Asian Art Biennale, Dhaka (2006), Asia Pacific Triennial, Brisbane (2018), and the Karachi Biennale (2019), and the Ashmolean, Oxford (2022). Kazim was the recipient of the Art House Residency in Wakefield, UK, and the Land Securities Studio Award in London, UK, and his works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum, among others.