Join us to celebrate the launch of Imran Qureshi’s new exhibition at QUAD, with a special performance by the artist. We also welcome seven artists specialising in miniature painting from Lahore, Pakistan, painting live in Gallery Two as part of the Maktab (Maktab is Arabic for school).

Imran Qureshi, an internationally renowned contemporary miniature painting pioneer, is arguably one of the most renowned artists to emerge from Pakistan in the last twenty years. At the core of Qureshi’s practice is contemporary miniature painting, rooted in the tradition of 16th Century Mughal art and culture.

The new exhibition in QUAD Gallery One by Qureshi will feature an installation made from over 30,000 pieces of paper forming an immense ‘paper mountain’. This centrepiece of the exhibition references those ‘...who have been buried without their lives honoured or the circumstances of their deaths investigated’. The exhibition will also include his signature miniature works, recent works on canvas, and the UK premier of new video works that focus on everyday life in Pakistan.

The Maktab painting school in QUAD Gallery Two is a live durational event by seven emerging miniature painting artists from Lahore, Pakistan: Shah Abdullah, Fizza Hussain, Syed Hussain, Sajid Khan, Zarina Khan, Tahir Ali Sadiq and Eesha Suhail. The artists are recent graduates from Lahore NCA, who took part in the first Maktab in 2018 at Lahore Biennale. They will be present and working in QUAD Gallery, which will be transformed into a Maktab, painting studio, from 28th November until 9th December. The artists will be making new works in the gallery space together with a group of artists from the UK, the paintings produced will then become part of the exhibition.

Also opening throughout QUAD Extra Gallery Spaces will be the inaugural QUAD Self-Portrait Open an exhibition featuring a wide array of small portraits made by 100+ artists connected to Derby/shire.

There will be events around QUAD, speeches and refreshments.

FREE Entry.

Supported by

Arts Council England

The first Maktab school was a project initiated by Agha Khan Museum of Islamic Art, Toronto; National College of Arts Lahore, and Lahore Biennale Foundation.

Imran Qureshi is represented by Corvi-Mora, London and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg.