Saturday, February 07, 2009

Two Views

Here is some very unusual art work from Pakistan
Rashid Rana

Born in Lahore, Pakistan, 1968
Lives and works in Lahore

Rashid Rana is part of the young and thriving artistic scene from Pakistan and is one of their most unique and celebrated artists. Rana’s interest lies in the ‘here and now’. He uses iconographic images that challenge the viewer’s perception of contemporary Pakistani art. His work addresses issues of faith, popular culture and incorporates a social/political commentary and parody.

Employing a range of media, Rana’s work reflects a spectrum of issues from popular culture to problems of gender and violence. Exploring the stereotyping of women, Rana in his Veil series looks at two extreme representations of women. From a distance, the image appears to be a group of veiled women. On closer inspection, it is a composite of hundreds of tiny hardcore porn photographs gleaned from the Internet. “I’m not making a statement here. The Internet is a major part of our lives these days and almost 70 percent of what you get on it is porn. It’s also about how men in western countries look at women from non-western or Islamic countries and how men in non-western countries look at western women ”.


How men in western countries look at women from non-western or Islamic countries

VEIL # 1

VEIL #2
VEIL #3
How moslems in non-western countries look at western women

Detail from VEIL #1

Detail from VEIL #2
Click on image for larger view
Warning, image maybe offensive

Detail from VEIL #3
Click on image for larger view
Warning, image maybe offensive

6 comments:

Pastorius said...

That's art for our times.

Anonymous said...

Alright if you like that sort of thing, but the females are rather mature for my taste, and as far as I can see they're all human.

Anonymous said...

I agree Ayatollah, and what's more they all seem to be alive.

Anonymous said...

Does anybody know where I can find full sized versions of these pix?

Life gets frustrating when you can't have any partners for all eternity. So I guess I'll just have to obey that verse in the Koran about enjoying what my right hand possesses.

Pastorius said...

Being a Christian, and therefore believing mastubation to be a sin, I prefer for my left hand not to know what my right hand is doing.

Anonymous said...

Gag me with a group of pixels. This is Jr. Photoshop Punk Religion Copacetic B-S and you can do it with any basic photo.