Venues

Pioneer Books

Pioneer Books was built on M.A. Jinnah Road, in 1948. Unmodified to this day, the bookstore has been declared a protected site by the Archeology Department of Sindh. Pioneer Books remains a symbol of independent thought and intellectual reflection in Karachi, a microcosmic reflection of the city’s rich cultural history.

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Participating Artists:

Huma Mulji /
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Huma Mulji

Born in 1970 in Karachi (Pakistan)
Lives and works in Bristol (UK)

Huma Mulji works with sculpture, photography, drawing and painting, creating material juxtapositions which are attentive to the absurd and broadly address notions of failure and neglect, endurance and transformation. The city, the everyday and the overlooked all serve as subjects in these deliberately awkward artworks, which are materially playful, spatially evocative and imbue an anti-heroism, playing out ironically, or sometimes comically, in her works. Mulji’s participation in recent exhibitions includes: “A Country of Last Things” (solo), Koel Gallery, Karachi, 2016; “The Great Game”, Iran Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2015; “Burning Down the House”, 10th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea; “Extra|Ordinary”, Dubai, 2013; “Twilight”, a solo show at Project 88, Mumbai, India, 2011; “The Rising Tide”, Mohatta Palace Museum, Karachi, 2010; “Where Three Dreams Cross”, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK, 2010; “Crystal Palace and Other Follies” (solo), Rohtas Gallery Lahore, 2010; “The Empire Strikes Back”, The Saatchi Gallery, 2010; and “Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan”, at Asia Society, NY, 2009. Mulji was a recipient of the Abraaj Group Art Prize 2013. She was Associate Professor at the School of Visual Arts, BNU, Lahore from 2002-2015 and is currently Visiting Artist 2015-17 at Goldsmiths College, London, visiting tutor BFA program at University of West of England, Bristol, and Lecturer, BA Hons. Fine Art at Plymouth College of Art, UK.

Mulji writes of her site-specific work for KB17: “The installation Ode to a Lamppost that Got Accidentally Destroyed in the Enthusiastic Widening of Canal Bank Road shifts from buoyant absurdity to a paradoxical and monumental decline, simultaneously quiet and disconcertingly momentous. The fallen lamppost flickers, gasping for life, refusing to die. The site of Pioneer Book House, equally worn, gives sanctuary but also illuminates the enormity of the moment, the slow passing of time. The site and the installation within collaborate to form a complex palimpsest of Karachi’s simultaneous and perpetual growth and decline.”

Ode to a Lampost that Got Accidentally Destroyed in the Enthusiastic Widening of Canal Bank Road, 2011-2017.
Site-specific installation
Lamppost, electric cables, LED lights and mixed media
Dimensions variable
Project supported by Plymouth College of Art

Pablo Lauf
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Pablo Lauf

Born in 1989 in Munich (Germany)
Lives and works in Berlin (Germany)

In 2016 Pablo Lauf graduated from Ostkreuz Schule, which is connected to Ostkreuz- Agentur der Fotografen, a photography agency that focuses on documentary and art photography in Berlin. Lauf has participated in several group exhibitions including: ‘AABER Art Award’ in Munich (2012); ‘Ostkreuzschule Rundgang’ in Berlin (2014-15); and ‘Perspectives From Contemporary Pakistan’ at HAU- Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin (2016). His recent work, Birds of Karachi was displayed at the Unseen photography fair in Amsterdam, in 2017. His first solo exhibition will take place at the Goethe-Institut Pakistan in December 2017.

Pablo Lauf writes of his photographs on view at KB17: “In my dreams I often find myself in strange surroundings: Empty cities, family houses, streets that seem as if they were disconnected from time. There is no one except for me, but still, those surreal rooms I explore do not seem deserted. It feels as if I slip into another layer of reality, roaming through transcendental worlds just like a ghost. One night in 2014, when I hiked in the remote mountain areas between Austria, Italy and Switzerland, I found myself in a small mountain village that made me feel as if I were dreaming awake. The sensation that overcame me while I wandered through its narrow alleys was very familiar to me. I just had never experienced something similar in my waking moments. I lost myself in a labyrinth hidden from the rest of the world by a thick, impenetrable curtain of darkness. I got carried away by the overwhelming silence of the night that was only interrupted by the buzzing noise of electricity that followed my every step. It felt as if time had stopped.”

Dissolve 01, 2014.
Black and white negative-film scan, fine art inkjet print
60 x 60 cm.
Courtesy the artist

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