Art is no object

The presence of art as a ‘commodity’ has long led to debates and discussions among artists, collectors, curators and connoisseurs. Is it even possible to have an art exhibition without objects The latest exhibition at Khoj International Artists’ Association, titled Exhibition Without Objects (EWO) is set to prove a point. Curated by US-based Pakistani curator Sadia Shirazi, the show will present works of seven Pakistani artists in the form of digital narratives on a PowerPoint. The travelling exhibition started its journey from Lahore and will move to Mumbai from the capital, followed by Karachi and conclude at Dubai. “Instead of showcasing art objects, the artists are asked to create digital narratives that play with the ubiquitous format of the PowerPoint. In addition, each artist has paired their PowerPoint with an event that further interrogates or explicates the themes introduced by their respective slideshow,” explains Shirazi. Participating artists include Iqbal Geoffrey, Seher Shah, Ayesha Jatoi, Mehreen Murtaza, Rabbya Naseer, Hurmat Ul Ayn and Saira Sheikh. EWO is a dynamic exhibition platform that will transform as it moves through cities. And, it aims to engage local audiences, to move bodies from one city to the next, and to build upon pre-existing networks to further strengthen, reinforce and engage knowledge that exists at each locale. “The first iteration of EWO took place at Lahore and was titled 136 MB/EWO (136 MB refers to the file size of the entire show). This subsequent iteration of the exhibition at Khoj includes two additional artists from Lahore. With these additions, the file size of the show and its title are updated accordingly and become 230 MB/EWO,” she explains. Several of the artists responded to the exhibition’s formal constraints, by working with the non-object based materiality of sound or by offering conceptual proposals in lieu of performance-based events. Other artists offered mediations in the form of the gallery talk or played with presence, through Skype. “230 MB/EWO links Lahore and Delhi as well as the cities’ inhabitants through the exhibition platform. EWO aggregates as it travels, growing in each instance to include artists from the cities it visits along a path towards its terminus,” concludes Shirazi.