“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; (I am large. I contain multitudes)”.

—Walt Whitman

Aamir Habib’s recent work is riddled with contradictions. The initial, immediate and obvious contradiction is SEEN in the first room of Canvas Gallery in his solo exhibition, Yours Truthfully, (November 2-11). A large scale brown ear, with a white ear pod stuck in it, making it a work of visual art about the act of hearing. Made in fibreglass, aluminium and paint, and fixed to the gallery’s white wall, it looks more like an advertisement for some Mac products, rather than an artwork.

A disparity or conflict that creates content in Aamir Habib’s art, supported by the title, Selective Listening, it signifies our habit and pattern of receiving information. It could also represent the scheme of transmitting facts (often fictitious). This happens in the realm of art too. For instance, you go to an exhibition, you look at the objects on display, you struggle with the artist’s statement, you hear the individual speak about his/ her creations, still what you get is a selective perception marked and marred by your previous experience of art and encounters with artists. Hence, no objective truth is possible.

Pablo Picasso once claimed that “We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth… The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies”. So Aamir Habib, or any other artist, is aware that he/ she is trespassing on a turbulent territory located between truth and falsity. Art is a means to create a meta-truth, not a momentary collection/ assumption of facts; an in-depth knowledge of the world that may contradict our temporary perceptions. Views previously held eternal have been proven wrong with the passage of time, i.e, earth is flat, Pluto is the ninth planet of the solar system.

In 1986, PEN, the international organisations of authors, chose the theme, The Writer’s Imagination and the Imagination of the State, for its 48^th Congress in New York. After 35 years, we can amend it to, The individual’s Truth and the Truth of the Media. A citizen of post-information technology era lives in the web of multiple truths and fibs but is so used to it that he hardly discerns the difference, or desires to do that. Consumers of social networks and the electronic and print media are assaulted by an abundance of content within a short span (a few minutes before the next post; a few hours prior to the next breaking news, till the next morning’s newspaper).

Tactful, because in the rush of fleeting hours, fleeing images and running texts, one hardly gets a moment to examine what one is fed on the media, and more importantly, why? Aamir Habib attempts to indicate the presence, power and play of the information web, especially the media, which has become the new ‘opiate of the masses’. You encounter fellow travellers at an airport, families having lunch in a restaurant, pedestrians on the street, all glued to their smart phones, checking latest posts, updating their status, tuning into the live-streaming of events. The world of ‘facts’ is accessible, but not necessarily believable.

Artists are an exception. Ironically, those who fabricate lies in/ through their art are best able to recognise the fake news all around us. Aamir Habib renders the post-truth condition in his art, but, mercifully, not referring to a particular incident or a persistent practice.

This happens with Aamir Habib’s works too. A visual artist and a graduate from the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in 2003, he worked with his teacher and mentor David Alesworth during his formative years. Later, he mastered the technique of producing works in various dimensions and formats. Habib impressed the visitors of the First Karachi Biennale (2017), with his sculpture of a donkey loaded with two TV sets. Titled, Already Eaten, it signified how media more than mere entertainment ends up being a burden on the beast we call the general public. Whatever is presented is chewed, cuddled, ruminated and absorbed in a passive, mindless state.

In his latest solo, Aamir Habib illustrates the scenario in a symbolic diction. In his Press Release, a glass bottle emanates fumes of poisonous matter. The work comprising a photo print and acrylic appears to be a publicity campaign for a drinkable substance, but reading the label (still not completely crossed out), one discerns that this unbelievably strong visual is about marketing poison that according to Habib we are fed, slowly, subtly, seductively in the guise of news.

If Aamir Habib deconstructs the national narrative, he also dismantles other truths propagated through media, which he finds supporting the state less and serving multinational and corporate interests more. Two of Habib’s works communicate that condition without pointing towards a particular incident/ imagery. His Knead (fibreglass, metal and LED lights) indicates the frivolity of truth posted as facts. A grilling tray, burning with red coals is a deception, because there is no fire, no smoke, no smell of barbecue, just a mute structure inside the gallery that generates the illusion of truth through its pictorial association.

Aamir Habib excels in this diction with his Can You Feel It? One sees a lit gas room heater placed in a corner of the gallery space. One views it not as an art piece, but as essential apparatus to cope with the chilly afternoons of Karachi, till one is told that it is an artwork. One can verify the fact by getting close to find out that the flame is burning without heat. This installation perhaps encapsulates his concerns most convincingly.

Can a portrait of our fading, fabricated and forced reality be a lot different?

The artist is an art critic based in Lahore