Karachi-based artist Amin Gulgee’s three decades long oeuvre Spans metal sculptures, daring implementation art and collaboration period. A well -structured new volume about his work entitled Amin Gulgee: No Man’s Land and edited by John McCarry, is neither completely academic nor a Raisoné catalog; It balances the two approaches with many images, frank writings written by Gulgee’s art comrades and overly short semi-school essays. I will borrow the words of writer HM Naqvi from his own fascinating essay about Gulgee’s extravagant versions: the refusal person being illustrated hardcover ‘attention’, just like the artist himself.
This is the reason: only a handful of books has presented a critical discourse about the stimulating art practice of Gulgee. In the pioneering 1998 book Image and identity: Fifty years of painting and sculpture in PakistanThe late Pakistani art historian Akbar Naqvi hinted to his contempt for the characterization of the artist of his own work as ‘Islamic art’. Twenty -six years and several catalog later, Not a man of man Changes this gap by revealing pluralistic perspectives at Gulgee’s work.
From couture jewelry and biomorphic forms to mathematical and monumental structures, Gulgee’s copper works illustrate his control of material and technology. His textured self -portraits are self -removing. The smoother calligraphic designs are soothing. Call spirituality and scienceThey present a permanent involvement between Islamic and South Asian tradition and modern art through what art historian Kishwar Rizvi calls an “range of formal strategies, on his own conditions” in her essay. Learned Simone Wille also writes about the modular qualities of Gulgee’s sculptures, such as “Metropolis II” (2006) and “Towers” (2008), which are made by welding copper sheets and being viewed from all sides. Unfortunately, both essays do not add much to existing perspectives on the artist and ended abruptly. I wanted more.
In the meantime, curator Maryam Ekhtiar, in a refreshing interview, asks the artist relevant questions about his fascination for sculpture, scale and the effects of the COVID-19 Pandemie at his practice. Gulgee Demystifies his process: he does not outline. The sculptures are made intuitively in his studio, where he is ‘brought to his process’. He does not take committees because they frame his creative license. He counts the Mughal Charbagh or Cross-Axial Garden, Louise Bourgeois’s “Spider” (1996), Karachi’s disappear Botal Gali Or Flesstraat that gets his name from stores that sell perfume bottles, verses from the Koran and Gaudi’s Park Güell in Barcelona under his inspirations. In particular, the artist remembers the trauma that he has endured in the aftermath of the 2007 Murder of his parents – The internationally renowned artist Ismail Gulgee and his wife Zaro. He reflects on finding recovery through performative works such as “Healing” (2010), in which the public saw how Gulgee’s colleague artists his head. He carried out the implementation again as Healing II In the midst of death in the Pandemie, this time without spectators.
A sincere note of the artist, printed next to a drawing: ‘Portrait of my son (1982), sketched by the Senior GulgeeInforms us that the contributors to the book – consisting of artists, curators, art historians, a political scientist and an author – received no restrictions on their essays. That freedom facilitated distinctive approaches: a quirky essay by artist-curator Alexi Worth, who calls playful Gulgee’s eccentric social antics, and a piece by Academic Gemma Sharpe who puts his performance in conversation with that of other Pakistani artists such as Durriya Kazi and the Late Ali Imam.
It speaks volumes about the values of prioritizing commercial success over critical artistic discourse in Pakistani publication that, despite the influence of Gulgee, Not a man of man is the first extensive monograph about the artist. It should certainly not be the last.
Amin Gulgee: No Man’s Land (2025), published by John McCarry, is published by Skira and is available online and through independent booksellers.
