Mustafa Zaman

SM Sultan: The vision of a coming society

Sultan, a painter, visionary and a subaltern guru, apparently emerged out of the social “utopia” that surfaced during Bangladesh’s Liberation War—one that animated the masses, as opposed to the narrative of the emergent ruling elite, where this dream of a coming community later collapsed into mere words or a set of symbolic gestures.

2y ago

Shada Beralera: Nitu and the spectre of a landscape

Rashida Sultana’s first novel entitled Shada Beralera (White Cats) comes in a slim package of 80 pages and is coloured by a passive discontent.

3y ago

Monsoon and the Visuality of Rain

When we set out to respond to rain, which appears to have soaked the human body and soul over the millennia, we must be aware that

5y ago

Far from the Maddening Crowd

"Far from representing reality, pictures probe multiple realities by fabricating narratives of events that never occurred." This quote by Mark C Taylor from his book on the American painter Mark Tansey sounds like a fitting homage to the works of Kazi Mrinal. Mrinal's images are like visioned unreality. They are structured by the communion-seeking mind rather than originating from contemplation or critical reflection on real events.

5y ago

Into the Fold, Out in the One

As a reconnaissance of what seems like a neural landscape, Soma Surovi Jannat's oeuvre seems to hover over the "plain of immanence" perceived as Spinoza's "single substance" (God/Nature), thereby, lending

6y ago

Articulating Life as It Unfolds

One of the pioneers of modern art in undivided Bengal, "Shilpacharya" Zainul Abedin (1914-1976) represents the mid-century "realist" trajectory that began to unfold in many modes and sequences—first in Calcutta...

6y ago

Iconoclastic figurality in Shahabuddin Ahmed

Alpha male striving to take on the future by breaking free of the bounds of the existential matrix—this is how a Shahabuddin addict might try and unhinge oneself from the "rote understanding" of his scampering, hurtling males for which he has made a name, at home and abroad.

6y ago

Sultan's atemporal vision of awakened bodies

S.M. Sultan, in an organic way, devised a strategy to simultaneously belong to the past and the present, to the East and the West, to 'here' and 'nowhere'.

6y ago
August 10, 2021
August 10, 2021

SM Sultan: The vision of a coming society

Sultan, a painter, visionary and a subaltern guru, apparently emerged out of the social “utopia” that surfaced during Bangladesh’s Liberation War—one that animated the masses, as opposed to the narrative of the emergent ruling elite, where this dream of a coming community later collapsed into mere words or a set of symbolic gestures.

November 14, 2020
November 14, 2020

Shada Beralera: Nitu and the spectre of a landscape

Rashida Sultana’s first novel entitled Shada Beralera (White Cats) comes in a slim package of 80 pages and is coloured by a passive discontent.

August 13, 2018
August 13, 2018

Monsoon and the Visuality of Rain

When we set out to respond to rain, which appears to have soaked the human body and soul over the millennia, we must be aware that

May 11, 2018
May 11, 2018

Far from the Maddening Crowd

"Far from representing reality, pictures probe multiple realities by fabricating narratives of events that never occurred." This quote by Mark C Taylor from his book on the American painter Mark Tansey sounds like a fitting homage to the works of Kazi Mrinal. Mrinal's images are like visioned unreality. They are structured by the communion-seeking mind rather than originating from contemplation or critical reflection on real events.

April 6, 2018
April 6, 2018

Into the Fold, Out in the One

As a reconnaissance of what seems like a neural landscape, Soma Surovi Jannat's oeuvre seems to hover over the "plain of immanence" perceived as Spinoza's "single substance" (God/Nature), thereby, lending

December 22, 2017
December 22, 2017

Articulating Life as It Unfolds

One of the pioneers of modern art in undivided Bengal, "Shilpacharya" Zainul Abedin (1914-1976) represents the mid-century "realist" trajectory that began to unfold in many modes and sequences—first in Calcutta...

September 15, 2017
September 15, 2017

Iconoclastic figurality in Shahabuddin Ahmed

Alpha male striving to take on the future by breaking free of the bounds of the existential matrix—this is how a Shahabuddin addict might try and unhinge oneself from the "rote understanding" of his scampering, hurtling males for which he has made a name, at home and abroad.

August 11, 2017
August 11, 2017

Sultan's atemporal vision of awakened bodies

S.M. Sultan, in an organic way, devised a strategy to simultaneously belong to the past and the present, to the East and the West, to 'here' and 'nowhere'.

August 7, 2017
August 7, 2017

The vision of a coming society

He chose to settle down in Narail, his home village, not to seek refuge in the bucolic distance, but to lend voice to the subaltern and to "talk back to the centre", vigilantly abrogating the colonial legacies that burden us to date.

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