Fine Arts of Bangladesh

Art Reminiscences in Lahore Fayza Huq T ayyaba Begum Lipi’s controversial and iconoclastic artistic works have been admired both at home and overseas. Her endeavours, in connection with the Britto Trust has always been something to write home about. To add to her artistic knowledge, Lipi visited Pakistan recently, this being her second visit. Her enthusiasm to add to her thirst for knowledge has taken her further on to the first world countries-- but they have not always been recounted or recorded, even in passing. Using razor blades, paintings of exotic legendary birds with women's head and other haunting female forms in the veil, Lipi, in her installations at Lahore, created quite a stir in her quest for liberation of the human mind. Lipi's installation in Lahore. The studio where she worked named after RM Naim, is reportedly Pakistan's largest gallery, and draws artists from all over South Asia. Naim is a teacher in L...

Mushfique Wadud searches out the stories behind the most significant sculptures of Bangladesh, the majority of which are monuments to the struggle and spirit of independence, and learns why each and every one is indispensable to our heritage and identity. On October 18, the chairman of a faction of Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ), Fazlul Haq Amini, on behalf of the Islami Ain Bastobayon Committee threatened to pull down every single statue around the country declaring that the establishment of statues were against the principles of Islam. The statement came in the backdrop of the government decision to pull down five baul statues, from the city’s airport area on October 15, by officials of the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) and civil aviation authority after protests from a radical Islamic organisation called the Khatame Nobuyat (anti-Ahmaddiya movement), whose members tried to pull down the statue only a day or two earlier. For over a month, different rights’ group, cultural org...