A new exhibition, ”Pop South Asia: Artistic Explorations in the Popular”, kickstarted here on Friday with an aim to provide a substantial survey of modern and contemporary art from the region that engages with popular culture.

Organised by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) and the Sharjah Art Foundation, the exhibition navigates diverse themes and features over 100 artworks by artists from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

It will be on display at the Sharjah Art Foundation till December 11 before travelling to India in 2023.

”Expanding the conventional canon of Pop Art, understood in the Western context primarily as art that addresses consumer culture and the media image, the exhibition foregrounds multiple layers and ideas embedded within the ‘popular’ in South Asia,” said the organisers in a statement.

”It highlights artists who explore the aesthetics of print, cinematic and digital media, alongside those engaging with devotional practices, crafts and folk culture; it presents artists addressing modes of local capitalism, from large-scale industries to vernacular ‘bazaars’, as well as those commenting on identity, politics and borders,” it added.

Indian artist Atul Dodiya’s painting ‘Gabbar on Gamboge’ (1997), a homage to Bollywood cinema’s iconic villain from the 1975 blockbuster ”Sholay”, and New-york based artist Baseera Khan’s lantern-like ‘Chandelier’ (2021) sculptures, referencing the joyous and cross-cultural associations evoked by disco balls, are among the many highlights of the exhibition.

Works by over 40 artists including the likes of MF Husain, Raja Ravi Varma, Abdul Halik Azeez, Naiza Khan, Pushpamala N, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Chandraguptha Thenuwara, Chila Kumari Burman, Chitra Ganesh and Mian Ijaz ul Hassan are featured in the exhibition.

Besides bringing to light the knowledge and research relevant to South Asia, the display also focuses on parallel regions across the world, which according to the organisers, are ”equally shaped by forces of capitalism and media as they continue to modernise and urbanise”.

The late seminal Indian painter Bhupen Khakhar’s ‘Janata Watch Repairing’ (1972) and ‘De-Luxe Tailors’ (1972), reminiscent of the ethos of shops and businesses across small towns in South Asia, as well as Afghan-Canadian artist Hangama Amiri’s textile installation ‘Bazaar’ (2020), in which the artist wove her childhood memories of Kabul’s bazaars, are other significant highlights.

The exhibition is curated by Iftikhar Dadi, artist and John H. Burris Professor at Cornell University, and Roobina Karode, director and chief curator of the KNMA.

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