Modern Painters

FROM TOP: BARBICAN ART GALLERY; IMRAN QURESHI AND CORVI-MORA, LONDONBLOUINARTINFO.COM JUNE/JULY 2016 MODERN PAINTERS 97``````LONDON``````Imran QureshiThe Curve, Barbican Centre // February 18–July 10``````FROM WITHIN THErecesses of the Barbican’sdark 90-meter Curve,Qureshi’s luminousgouache paintings lureviewers to a personalcontemplation of contem-porary events. The twenty-six 14-by-11-inch folios,hung at various heights,retain in expandedscale the pictorial logicof a miniature (littledepth of perspective,high horizons, stylization,and bright colors).The sequence beginswith delicate scenes ofnature, the Lahore-basedartist tapping into thesymbolic imaginary ofMughal and Persianateculture—namely, thefashionable trope of thegarden—to narrate cryptictales of lost splendorand decline. Unlike theEuropean garden,historically intended forpromenading, the Islamicgarden was designedfor meditation and thestimulation of pleasure:Lovers delighted insolitude, the unhappyfound solace, and royalsentertained their guestswith great hospitality.In the Koran, the gardenis a foretaste of heaven;a place for retreat fromdaily worries, it delightsthe eyes with treebranches spreading shade,unfailing fruits, fragrantÁRZHUVDQGIRXQWDLQVof running water. Usingthe curvature of thespace, Qureshi graduallyintroduces the viewerto darker elements. Withhis customary squirrel-hair brush, the artisttransforms the depictionof old sovereign pastimesand landscapes fordivine play into visions ofdilapidation: In serialrepetition, folio after folio,red weeds wrap aroundtree trunks, evenuprooting them. Acrossseveral other works,VZDUPVRIGUDJRQÁLHV``````hover over murky waterslike tiny faint glimmerssusceptible to the slightestbreeze—one is remindedto heed where theproverbial wind blows.The artist revelsin symptoms of theabandoned garden. Butthe miniatures appearless polished than theirpredecessors, suggesting arather hasty production:Expanses of gold leaf(a material generallyused sparingly by minia-turists) abound; messystreaks of blue andblotches of red soil thecompositions. Floweringfrom the same carminepigment are Qureshi’stoo familiar budsRIEORRG:KHUHDVÀYHcenturies back traditionalminiaturists left theirwork unsigned and bereftof idiosyncrasies, Qureshiwishes to be different.This body of work bringsto mind the 1998 Turkishnovel My Name Is Red,whose Ottoman Empireminiaturists murderouslystaved off such aWesternizing shift: HasQureshi, too, succumbedto the violence ofauthorship?The ruined gardenscould conjure up theperished Iraqi paradises ofKabul, Kashmir, andSamarra, but Qureshi ismerely allusive. AnotherÁRZHULQVSLUHGWKHQatari poet Mohammedibn al-Dheeb al-AjamiWRFRPSRVHDÀHU\SRHPcondemning Western-ization: It ignited theArab Spring. “TunisianJasmine” was airedon news media across theMiddle East, resultingin the poet’s sentencingto life imprisonment(though he was releasedlast March). Qureshithe miniaturist may speakRIYLROHQFHEXWKLVÁRUDremain yoked to a sense ofenigma and duplicity.—Emilia Terracciano``````Imran QureshiLEFT:Installation viewof “Where theShadows Are SoDeep,” 2016.BELOW:Trespass, 2014.Gouacheon wasli paper,17 x 20 in.