Bradford’s Cartwright Hall Art Gallery is presenting Assassins and Lovers, a major new exhibition of South Asian modern and contemporary art.
Curated by artist, educator and cultural commentator Salima Hashmi, with Manmeet K Walia as assistant curator, the show draws on Bradford’s own public art collection to bring together influential artists from India, Pakistan and the British South Asian diaspora, including Anish Kapoor, Amrita Sher-Gil, Zahoor ul Akhlaq, Bhupen Khakhar, Anwar Saeed and Nilima Sheikh.
The exhibition takes its title and themes from Mere Qaatil, Mere Dildar (My Assassin, My Beloved), the celebrated poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz later immortalised in song by Malika Pukhraj, and traces how South Asian artists responded to independence, colonial legacies and international influences across the twentieth century, through themes of love and loss, devotion and dissent, memory and migration.
Zone of Dreams
Hashmi has a long history with the gallery: she was artist in residence there 21 years ago, and previously contributed to two earlier Cartwright Hall exhibitions, in 1994 and 1997. Her own piece, Zone of Dreams, is currently on display as part of the gallery’s The Big Picture exhibition.
Hashmi said the exhibition explores “the shared cultural threads and unique voices that shape South Asian art.”
Assassins and Lovers runs alongside several other current exhibitions at Cartwright Hall, including Jim Moir’s Neo Fauna and Pre-Raphaelites Reframed. More details at BradfordMuseums.org.
