A frontal view of precariously perched box-like houses in yellow, beige and blue over an bustling bazaar in old Kabul, is perhaps the centrepiece of the ongoing exhibition on contemporary Afghan art in New Delhi. It immediately arrests your attention with its densely-packed imagery, layered in a soothing colour palette. This 190x152cm oil-on-canvas is also the highest priced artwork at Rs1,50,000. It is made by 30-year-old Moheb Sadiq, a self-taught painter from Kabul.
Sadiq once used to paint pictures of war and bloodshed in Afghanistan, but later abandoned depressing realism in favour of vibrant colours and dramatic brushstrokes. Sadiq's brother Mohammad Salim Attaie goes about fielding queries from a number of interested buyers. For 47-year-old Attaie, whose many stories of loss and survival in a war-torn country might fill a book, art-school training is overrated. "A real, original artist is not taught or schooled," he says half-smilingly.
It is Attaie's persistence which has brought 'Afghan Art: A Land In Conflict and Hope' to India. A self-taught painter like his brother, Attaie dreams of opening an art gallery in India one day and educate audiences about Aghanistan's growing art scene. For now though, he has to be content with curating his first ever exhibition outside Kabul—a group show of largely self-trained artists who have used watercolours and oil paintings to depict an Afghanistan unperturbed by rising violence or surveillance. Caravan merchants, busy barbers, horse-mounted buzkashi players, watchful Pashtun nomads, sleepy carpet sellers, placid vistas of the Kabul canal and or even the imposing Ghorband mountains—the ordinary and humdrum is executed in its fulsome glory, attesting to the unchanging reality that life goes on in spite of everything.
Attaie would know. Forced to join the army at age 16 to fight the Russians, in the 1980s, Attaie's adolescence and early adulthood was devoted to saving life and limb for four long years. Subsequently, he kept taking up whatever jobs he could find to stay afloat. He was once a tea-seller, a construction labourer, a dry-fruit peddler and a thelawala. He dabbled in countless other odd jobs he can hardly recall. It was only after he came across discarded paintings at pawn shops, passed on by families fleeing Mujahideen violence, that Attaie was charged up again, infused with a renewed sense of hope and vigour. He soon became an art seller. He also started painting. In 2002, he opened an art gallery in Kabul called Gallery Nootaq, which means starting from scratch . "I am pretty sure it was the first ever art gallery in Kabul then. Now, there are many," says Attaie.
Afghanistan's art scene did, in fact, witness a revival with the fall of the Taliban in 2001, after a ban on any kind of artistic expression from 1996 to 2001. Even so, widespread poverty and economic downturn limits public exhibitions in the country. There are very few art buyers there.
But Attaie is determined to change that as he seeks to bring to the fore artworks of the many young artists in the country. Says Delhi-based Anita Anand, a development and communication specialist who has been working in Afghanistan since 2004 and facilitated the exhibition, "When you have conflict in your country for such a long period of time, you kind of have to live by your wits. Attaie is clearly a man who sees opportunity. When you have to put bread and butter and keep yourself together, then you have to do what it takes."
Attaie paints abstracts and figurative musings which bespeak hope, love and rejuvenation. There is an odd "Imagined City" which stands out for its jet black tones streaked with blinding colours. Attaie calls it "kharaba sheher", a city riddled with darkness and desperation. He painted this a year ago when a bomb blast claimed 200 innocent lives at one go in Kabul. But then such is the curatorial prowess of Attaie. His artistic vision of the everyday doesn't preclude the unfortunate, recurring realities of his beloved Afghanistan.
'Afghan Art: A Land In Conflict and Hope' is on display till June 9 at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi.