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Calligraphic exhibition opens today

Published: October 12, 2011

OUR STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE – Group calligraphic paintings exhibition of seven known artists of the country will open at the Revivers Galleria in Gulberg today (Wednesday).

Titled “The Art of Calligraphy”, the calligraphic paintings exhibition will continue for a fortnight till October 25 providing the art lovers in general and those interest in calligraphic paintings in particular vast opportunities to view the calligraphic art work on display at the Revivers Galleria which will also remain open on October 16.

On display in the exhibition are as many as 48 selected calligraphic paintings of Amjad Butt, Bin Qullander, Chitra Pritam, Mashkoor Raza, Mussarat Arif, Riaz Rafi and Tariq Javaid who hail from Lahore, Karachi and other parts of the country.

Curator of the Revivers Galleria, Sara Anjum expressed the confidence and hope that the art lovers and collectors in general and lovers of calligraphic art work in particular would greatly appreciate the calligraphic paintings depicting the holy verses on the canvass which have been done in different interesting and inspiring mediums.

She said it was an honour for the gallery that the new art season was being opened with group exhibition of calligraphic paintings, adding that more solo and group paintings exhibitions were in the pipeline for the coming weeks and months.

Simultaneously, another exhibition of paintings and ceramics titled ‘Harmony of Colours and Emotions Reflects Moods’ will be opened at Alhamra Art Gallery, The Mall. The exhibition having works of Zammurd Safdar will remain open till October 15.

Dr Amjad Saeed’s book published: Punjab University Hailey College of Banking & Finance Principal Prof Dr Khawaja Amjad Saeed’s book titled “The Economy of Pakistan” (Revised and Updated Edition – 2011) has been published by Oxford University Press, Karachi. The first edition of the book was published in 2007. The essential core textbook for universities and colleges covers changes in Pakistan’s economy as reported in Pakistan’s Economic Survey 2008-2009, World Development Report 2010, State Bank of Pakistan Annual Report 2008-2009, Asian Development Report 2009, Asian Outlook 2009, Relevant and Pertinent Newspapers/Professional Journals Articles, Transparency International Report 2009 and the IMF Country Report on Pakistan 2009.

The current edition also includes changes in economic policies, suggestions for poverty alleviation and the current trade policy of Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD - Artists endeavour to preserve cultural heritage

Islamabad—Keeping alive its tradition of bringing innovative artworks since 1984, Nomad Art Gallery, this time, has presented a variety of art forms in its latest exhibition which opened here on Tuesday. The exhibition includes impressive ceramics items and treasured photographs of the twin cities by Naseer Malik, besides some inspiring wood sculptures by Abbas Shah. The two artists are pioneers of Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV), and have served at the state media for over 3 decades.

On its opening day, the show was widely attended by the art lovers and artists of the twin cities who were pleased to find diverse array of artworks and archival photographs at the art exhibition.

Talking to Pakistan Observer, Nageen Hyat, Director and Curator of Nomad Gallery said that the art show is a true reminder of our splendid heritage, furtively advising us to preserve our rich architectural heritage as “we identify ourselves through our past; therefore heritage and conservation retain a significant place in the development progress of a society.”“The exhibition is a reminiscence of our splendid heritage” remarked Saima Hasan, a visitor. The sculptures remind one of the cherished past while the Raku items symbolize our traditional items like ceramics and the photographs of the old architectures take you back into bygone era. As many as 53 art pieces of ‘Raku’ ceramics, 26 photographs and 6 sculptures are put on display at the exhibition which will continue till October 18 (10am-7pm) at Nomad Gallery.

Kazakh-China Diary: Two roads

By Konrad Muller - 12 October 2011 5:20PM

Konrad Muller is a former Australian diplomat and journalist. He and Anthony Bubalo are undertaking fieldwork for a new project examining Kazakh-China relations. Earlier posts in this series: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, post 5, post 6.

As the two sides of the border-crossing had seemed to tell a tale, so did the roads down which we traveled from Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, to Urumqi in China.

Cracked, patched-up and corrugated, with mud, the odd pothole and languid dogs loitering, the road from Almaty to the border town of Zharkent was a place where a suburban four-wheel drive might actually have been sensible.

We were hurtling along in a brave piece of Japanese machinery, driven by a gentleman called Baghdad from the town of Semeypalatinsk, whose preferred style of driving outside residential areas was cavalier. Indeed, we could only liken it to the Bedouin-crazed long-distance hire-taxis Anthony and I had each tasted on the Sinai Peninsula. What, we asked, is it about these nomads and former nomads when they get behind a wheel?

Generally, Baghdad liked to sit at a respectable 160kmh, including when he pulled out into the middle of the road, despite the oncoming trucks. And he would take the bumps as a free spirit should — sailing into the air and landing with a jolt which would cause him to turn to us and smile, as if to say 'You are okay, aren't you?' as he kept on sailing. 'The vehicle's obviously not his', Anthony observed.

But we were not complaining. After all, who needs Luna Park when you're on the Kazakh steppe? Baghdad seemed sharp-eyed and alert enough, and the shifting landscape was striking — deciduous trees and corn fields turning golden with autumn, replaced in time by the paws of the Tian Shan's foothills, tawny in the sun. Then we entered the Sharyn Canyon, a weird orange landscape, like something out of Mars, before finally we drove onto the edge of the steppe, all bronzed tussock on gravelly soil, flat and unchanging as the outback, a landscape fit for the nomad's patient eye and for the herd of Bactrian camel that we saw slowly moving.

Though we were enjoying ourselves, we wondered how this workaday road related to the grand plans to develop a West China to Western Europe highway (of which this strip forms a part), with intended trade and transit benefits. The date for finishing this US$6.6 billion project in Kazakhstan is 2012. We could only conclude the segment from Almaty to Khorgos had not been completed as yet.

The Chinese section of this transcontinental highway, we discovered driving from the border to Urumqi, had been completed, as indeed it was scheduled to be by 2010. Here the road via Yining (or Ghulja as the Kazakhs call it, a name that goes back to the Zunghars, a Mongol people exterminated by the Manchu in the eighteenth century) seemed almost like a Chinese paean to the freeways of America, that mid-twentieth century symbol of speed and power.

Exceedingly smooth, it was well-marked and apparently well-graded (although Anthony, whose father once worked on remote roads in Western Australia and had thereby been mentally inducted into the obscure art of bitumen, assured me, when drizzle began to fall, that the furrows of water collecting in the middle of the expressway — 'that should not be happening', he said — were a sign that perhaps the grading of this road was something less than perfect.)

As if to strike the correct contemporary note, our Chinese driver began to play some form of pulsing techno ('ROCK ROCK ROCK YOUR BODY YOU'VE GOT TO LICK IT LICK IT LICK IT IF YOU'RE GONNA KICK IT KICK IT KICK'), the musical equivalent of the Wrigley's spearmint chewing gum he masticated on throughout our journey to Urumqi.

But, again, we were not complaining, and again the landscape was memorable, as were the feats of engineering we witnessed, especially as our vehicle went from Yining into and through the western foothills of the Tian Shan. Here were fir trees sitting on teeth of jagged granite, then we were in the mountains with a dusting of snow, and suddenly out of nowhere a truly extraordinary suspension bridge materialised hanging in the clouds and curving perhaps three hundred metres above the valley floor. Massive stabilising metals pylons were rammed into the rock of the hillsides below. It seemed like modernity on the march. The new China.

Kazakhstan artworks represent diverse and exciting themes

THE beauty of Kazakhstan arts and culture will be on display for the first time in Malaysia.

Held at the Starhill Gallery Kuala Lumpur in conjunction with Kazakhstan’s 20th year of independence, the month-long art exhibition entitled “The Bridge of Art to Kazakhstan” will showcase 101 paintings by the country’s lauded painters.

The launch of the exhibition was launched by Tourism Ministry Deputy Secretary General Dr Junaida Lee Abdullah and witnessed by the Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Beibut Atamkulov.

“This year we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of our independence. We are a young country, but our art is saturated with history and tradition.

India announce two ambitious museum projects « AMA

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India announce two ambitious museum projects

India, 11 October 2011, Art Media Agency (AMA).

The Art Newspaper and blog Indian Art Views have just announced that future museum projects will take place in the next few years. These projects reflect the current situation, between tradition and modernity, of the Indian museums cultural policy.

The Kolkata Museum of Modern Art (KmoMA) is scheduled to open in Kolkata, in 2014. The ambitious project, launched in 2009, estimated at $84 million, is created upon a surface of over 50,000 sq metres. The city’s first contemporary art museum, will present Indian artworks created in the 18^th century and today, as well as a selection of Oriental and European art.

The Bihar State are developing plans, alongside British society Lord Cultural Resources, to build a new museum in the capital, Patna, with a budget of $80 million. This institution’s aim would be to illustrate the contribution of traditional Indian culture and art, in the Far East civilisation. The collections of the museum will also display the history of Patna, an ancient town that belonged to Pataliputra.India announce two ambitious museum projects « AMA

Travel Pioneers in Southeast Asia | The Constant Traveler

October 12, 2011

Travel Pioneers in Southeast Asia

A Buddhist monk at Preah Vihear. Photo by the author

Andrea and Brandon Ross fell in love with Southeast Asia on their very first visit, then moved to Cambodia in 2003 to startJourneys Within, a travel agency headquartered in Siem Reap at the threshold of Angkor.

They were pioneers at the time. In the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge genocide and civil war that claimed the lives of at least two million people between 1975 and 1998, the town was a run-down backwater. But the young American couple knew it wouldn’t stay that way. Now Siem Reap has a population of about 100,000, an international airport, a branch of the national museum and ritzy hotels catering to millions of people who visit Cambodia every year to see the 150-square-mile archaeological park at Angkor, a UNESCO World Heritage Site enshrining the singular art and architecture of the Khmer Empire.

Last fall I wanted to go to Cambodia, but not on my own. For this visit I wanted expert help because my goal was to visit not just Angkor, but off-the-beaten track Khmer temples in the back of beyond, such as Preah Vihear on the contested border between Cambodia and Thailand. By chance, I found the Rosses who tailored a trip for me, starting in Angkor, where I saw all the great Khmer Empire landmarks, from majestic Angkor Wat to jungly Ta Prohm. At Bayon it started to pour, sending tears streaming down the strange smiling faces that line the sides of the temple’s iconic beehive-shaped towers.

From there my guide and I took a van over rough, single-lane roads to Koh Ker, a Khmer royal city about 60 miles northeast of Angkor famous for its 7-story pyramid. Mines laid during the civil war left it largely unexcavated and seldom visited. But efforts to dismantle leftover ordnance has begun to pay off, allowing for the opening of Koh Ker to sightseers.

Then it was on the Preah Vihear, the highlight of the trip, another Khmer temple built around the time French stonemasons were at work on Chartres. The complex is clustered around a 2,600-foot walkway that leads to the edge of a cliff in the Dangrek Mountains. It‘s magnificent, but woefully neglected chiefly because of on-and-off border skirmishes between Thai and Cambodian troops in the area.

The tour company was able to stage my visit to Preah Vihear during a cease fire because it knows Cambodia at first hand. The Rosses are personally invested in it.

While living and working there, Brandon and Andrea realized how little money it takes to do good things in Cambodia where the average income is under $800 a year. For instance, $350 can give villagers a much-needed well. So along with the travel agency and a bed and breakfast inn, they founded a U.S.-registered nonprofit organization that now has an annual budget of $180,000, partly funded by clients. In addition to building wells, Journeys Within Our Community underwrites university scholarships, free language classes and micro-loans for small, start-up businesses. “Give and Take” tours allow volunteer-travelers to spend time working on community development projects.

The impulse to give back—a fundamental of responsible tourism—came naturally to the Rosses in Cambodia. And there are other small travel agencies operating in Asia that take the same approach.Myths and Mountains, based in Nevada, showed me Nepal a few years ago, including one of the 55 libraries nurtured by the company in rural villages. Like my visit to Cambodia, it was a rich trip because the tour company has deep roots in the region.