Artistic insurgents
In the west, insurgency is part of the job title of artists, who are culturally licensed to upset things. Elsewhere, the cheeky challenges offered by contemporary art may seem less important when eclipsed by AK-47 rifles, drones and extreme poverty. This group show started in battle-worn Afghanistan and is now in Pakistan, and it triumphs by matching contemporary art with more locally-defined practices such as calligraphy, geometric design and miniature painting. It looks great, and seems to have set up a successful dialogue between the local and the global, the old and the new, in a way that validates all of them.








