DIS-LOCATION-2

Playing with notions of gestalt, Rashid Rana's images reveal multiple worldviews both formally and conceptually. "In works that suggest a simultaneous exploration of media and identity bound by a political edge, Rashid Rana satirizes pop culture, transforms symbols of traditional Muslim daily life, and re-interprets elements of art and cultural history." (B. Citron, Initial Access, Frank Cohen Collection, Passage to India, http:/ www.initialaccess.co.uk/artist) According to Rana, "the Dis-location series, addresses the relationship between video and two-dimensional still imagery, in general, or in other words, the relationship between conventional two-dimensional image-making and time-based arts. In particular, this work is also meant to evoke the feel of a charcoal drawing when seen from distance and the large image is not as defined as it is in other works." (Correspondence with the artist).

Rana charts a new course with this particular body of work by using one location photographed over a span of time to create the large composite image of the same location. However while the 'pixel' or still images demonstrate the hustle of contemporary Lahore's busy streetlife, the whole image retains an old-fashioned charm conveying the look of a historical photograph which in turn provides the viewer with a disorienting sense of another time and place.

An important mid-career retrospective of Rana's work just concluded at the Mohatta Palace Museum, Karachi. His works have also been shown at the Singapore Art Museum, Musée Guimet, Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Fotomuseum, Winterthur, the Asia Society Museum, New York, and the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai.