The Art of Barzakh : The Poses, Props and Performances of Masculinity in Pakistani Art

Abstract

Derived from vernacular and esoteric sources, the research has revealed a series of common visual tropes whose symbolism I unpack through my interdisciplinary art practice as poetic expressions of jalāl (majesty) and jamāl (beauty), to illustrate how Pakistani artists may construct and critically analyse representations of male bodies and the myths of Islamic masculinity, whether present or inferred. This expands the methods artists can use to construct culturally informed masculinities that engage with social, political and religious factors, providing alternative readings to the hegemonic Western notions of Islamic male identity that are often imposed in studies of the Islamic world. Responding to how Islamic masculinities and Pakistani Muslim men specifically are perceived around the world, Pakistani artists have addressed these problems, but for complex cultural reasons the potential for misinterpretation has stymied in depth exploration. This means that Islamic masculinity in the Visual Arts continues to rely on mainstream Western neo-Orientalist readings premised on a monolithic Islam emptied of history, diversity and dissent. Furthermore, Western gender models remain inadequate in identifying Islamic models beyond their legalist tradition, corporeality, and ‘essentialist’ social roles. Through studio-based research, the thesis addresses these issues to develop a more robust model for visualising a Pakistani masculinity that accepts the polymorphous realities of gender dynamics in Islamic visual culture. As a male Pakistani Muslim artist who has lived most of his adult life in the West, my point of departure is gender theory from within Islam itself: I argue the traditional Islamic gender concepts, jalāl (majesty) and jamāl (beauty), provide a model for a ‘balanced’ Islamic masculinity that is fluid and heterogeneous. Furthermore, upon analysis of this model and its application to conceptual and visual practices, I coined the descriptor, ‘Art of Barzakh’ (Barzakh’s literal translation, ‘a veil or partition between two things’), a liminal zone between Islamic tradition and contemporary innovation. I propose this may apply to the art practices of many Pakistani artists, locating the masculine object into a collective schema of jalāli and jamāli qualities, restoring Islamic masculine balance.