Sharjah Art Museum is hosting In the Round, the first major international retrospective of work by famous Pakistani artist, women’s rights activist, and educator Lala Rukh. Reflecting on 30 years of Rukh’s diverse practice, the exhibition examines how the shaping of temporality takes different forms throughout her life. Curated by Hoor Al Qasimi (Director of Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF)), Natasha Ginwala (Co-Curator of Sharjah Biennial 16), and Mahmoud El Safadi (Assistant Curator of SAF), the show will run until 16 June 2024.
The exhibition features 60 artworks, some from the SAF Collection, which include Rukh’s rarely-seen drawings and photographs (such as, for example, the pictures of everyday life in Pakistan and Chicago she took in the 1970s). Visitors can also see original posters and publications from the artist’s activism, along with archival materials and interviews with her collaborators in the fight for gender justice and civic rights. Additionally, In the Round presents Rupak (2016), Rukh’s final piece that seamlessly integrates her interests in abstraction, calligraphy, and music.
Among Rukh’s lesser-known series of works displayed in the show is Sigiriya (1993). Produced at the eponymous ancient rock fortress in Sri Lanka, it portrays water bodies and their fluid rhythms and reflects the horizon’s changing light from dawn to dusk. Another series on view is a collection of prints and a video the artist created during a residency in Gadani, a coastal town in Pakistan, in 2001. The art pieces from this series testify to Rukh’s profound contemplation of the sea, particularly the impact of the nearby shipbreaking yards. These pieces explore themes of natural cycles, ecological crisis, and resilience.
About the artist
Lala Rukh (b. 1948, Lahore — d. 2017), who resided in her hometown, studied art at Punjab University (Lahore), from which she graduated with an MFA; she also obtained an MFA from the University of Chicago (USA). Rukh taught for 30 years at Punjab University, Department of Fine Art and the National College of Arts, where she founded the MA (Hons) Visual Art Programme in 2000. Post-retirement, she dedicated her time to her practice, which encompassed drawing, printmaking, photography, and video, alongside her activism.
A key figure in mobilising women against state oppression and gender discrimination, Rukh co-founded the Women’s Action Forum (WAF) (1981), Simorgh (1985) (a feminist collective in Pakistan that focused on research, publications, and championing women’s issues), and Vasl Artists Trust (2000).
Rukh’s poetic art pieces depict horizons, lunar movements, bodies of water, coastlines, and archaeological sites. In them, she captured a gradient of rhythms, employing her distinctive visual language that blended calligraphic form, minimalism, and symbolic writing. An important source of her inspiration was Hindustani classical music (a genre she became familiar with owing to her close association with the All Pakistan Music Conference initiated by her father Hayat Ahmad Khan in 1959). Her works incorporated many references to music and musical notations.
Rukh’s art pieces have been part of multiple exhibitions, such as In Between the Notes (Experimenter Gallery, India, 2023); PAN-AUSTRO-NESIAN ARTS FESTIVAL (Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 2021); Artist’s Rooms: Lala Rukh (solo) (Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, 2018); Lahore Biennale 01 (2018); The past, the present, the possible – Curated by Eungie Joo (Sharjah Biennial 12, 2015); Exhibitions of Works: 1989 – 2004 (solo) (Zahoor – ul – Akhlaq Gallery, National College of Art, Lahore, 2004); Viewed Collections: Rare Book Room (New York Public Library, New York, USA, 1996); and many others.
To get more information about In the Round, please visit the show’s official web page.
You might also be interested in seeing Shifting Sands: A Battle Song, an installation by Manal AlDowayan. In addition, we recommend that you visit Charts for a Resurrection by Dima Srouji.
