A month-long solo exhibition ‘Maya’, by Syed Muhammad Zakir is underway at Bengal Shilpalay. Organised by Bengal Foundation, the inaugural ceremony of the exhibition was held on July 22 on the gallery premises.
Professor Lala Rukh Selim of the Faculty of Fine Art, University of Dhaka, artist and art-writer Mustafa Zaman, and artist Mahbubur Rahman, attended the event as guests.
In the show, the artist recreates the imagined city of ‘Bagreb’. Time, for him, is not a linear entity but an aspect of the space-time continuum. In the exhibition, Zakir draws on the lives of the unnoticed millions wrestling with the city and the loss and decimation of nature that they face every day. He manipulates and transforms a broken bough, a deluge of discarded plastic bottles, a tree trunk, an overflowing plastic bag, a tottering cart, layers of styrofoam packaging, and many more ordinary objects, mundane belongings, and materials, that hint at a dangerously teetering environment.
The unlikely juxtaposition of everyday objects, their artistic manipulations, and their improbable dialogues inside an unfamiliar space, all work towards building a new, and perhaps startling, consciousness – a realisation of the urgency to return to nature, before we exhaust ourselves completely.
Syed Muhammad Zakir is a visual artist based in Dhaka. He mostly works in public places, involving the commons and the environment. Through performance art, installation art, land art, and wall-art, Zakir interrogates our lives and desires and probes deeper questions relating to the universe and the cosmos. A trans-disciplinary artist, Zakir tries to connect with people using body movement and instantly devised activities, while pushing his audience to think. He likes working with an assortment of materials, shapes, textures, and objects that are readily available to us. Bright and metallic colours figure in Zakir’s work. His drawings stand out for their strong lines and bold expression. Zakir’s work is often considered satirical, scathing, and even humorous. ‘Maya’ is Zakir’s second solo show.
Born in 1975 in Rangpur, Syed Muhammad Zakir started his art practice when he enrolled in the Faculty of Fine Art at the University of Dhaka, in 1994. There he trained as a sculptor. His first collaborative performance show was held in 1996. After that Zakir performed in many solo and collaborative performance-art shows. He continues to make drawings.
The exhibition will remain open to all Monday to Saturday from 4 pm to 8 pm (Closed on Sunday), until September 2.
