> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# An Artist’s Thirty-Year Affair With Copper
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/artist-amin-gulgee-thirty-year-affair-with-copper/
- Published: 2025-04-02T21:57:07.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:14:21.000Z
- Description: No Man’s Land, Pakistani artist Amin Gulgee’s first comprehensive monograph, maps his interest in exploring ritual, science, grief, and healing in a visual language all his own.
- Author: Nageen Shaikh
- Tags: Book Review, Books, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-large, #Import 2025-11-24 09:41 (2025)

Karachi-based artist Amin Gulgee’s three-decade-long [oeuvre](https://www.gulgeeamin.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) spans metal sculptures, bold performance art, and collaborative curation. A well-structured new volume on his work, titled *Amin Gulgee: No Man’s Land* and edited by John McCarry, is neither fully academic nor a catalogue raisonné; it balances the two approaches with plenty of images, candid writings penned by Gulgee's art comrades, and overly brief semi-scholarly essays. I'll borrow writer H. M. Naqvi's words from his own engaging essay on Gulgee’s extravagant performances: The opulently illustrated hardcover “demands attention,” as does the artist himself. 

Here’s why: Only a handful of books have presented a critical discourse on Gulgee’s stimulating art practice. In the seminal 1998 [book](https://aaa.org.hk/en/collections/search/library/image-and-identity-fifty-years-of-painting-and-sculpture-in-pakistan?ref=hyperallergic.com) *Image and Identity: Fifty Years of Painting and Sculpture in Pakistan*, the late Pakistani art historian Akbar Naqvi hinted at his disdain for the artist’s characterization of his own work as “Islamic art.” Twenty-six years and several [catalogs](https://www.gulgeeamin.com/catalogues/?ref=hyperallergic.com) later, *No Man’s Land* amends this gap by revealing pluralistic perspectives on Gulgee's work.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/04/amin-gulgee-zero-gravity.jpg)

Amin Gulgee, *Memory Garden* (2024), installation of seven copper sculptures at National Museum of Qatar (photo Nageen Shaikh/*Hyperallergic*)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/04/amin-gulgee-_non-binary-cube_-2022-copper-and-steel-64-x-49-x-35-inches.jpg)

Amin Gulgee, "Non-binary Cube" (2022), copper and steel (photo by Humayun Memon, courtesy John McCarry)

From couture jewelry and biomorphic forms to mathematical and monumental structures, Gulgee’s copper works illustrate his mastery of material and technique. His textured self-portraits are self-deprecating. The smoother calligraphic designs are soothing. Invoking spirituality and [science](https://www.dawn.com/news/1739094/exhibition-gulgees-phantasmagorical-wonderland?ref=hyperallergic.com), they present an exigent engagement between Islamic and South Asian tradition and modern art through what art historian Kishwar Rizvi calls a “range of formal strategies, on his own terms” in her essay. Scholar Simone Wille also writes about the modular qualities of Gulgee’s sculptures, like “Metropolis II” (2006) and “Towers” (2008), which are made by welding copper sheets and meant to be viewed from all sides. Unfortunately, both essays add little to existing perspectives on the artist and ended abruptly. I craved more.

Meanwhile, in a refreshing interview, curator Maryam Ekhtiar asks the artist pertinent questions about his fascination with sculpture, scale, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on his practice. Gulgee demystifies his process: He does not sketch. The sculptures are created intuitively in his studio, where he is “beholden to his process.” He does not take commissions because they cage his creative license. He counts the Mughal *charbagh* or cross-axial garden, Louise Bourgeois's “Spider” (1996), Karachi’s disappearing *botal gali* or bottle street which gets its name from shops selling perfume bottles, verses from the Qur’an, and Gaudi’s Park Güell in Barcelona among of his inspirations. Notably, the artist recalls the trauma he endured in the wake of the 2007 [murders of his parents](https://tribune.com.pk/story/1417053/gulgee-wifes-murderers-handed-life-imprisonment?ref=hyperallergic.com) — the internationally renowned artist Ismail Gulgee and his wife Zaro. He reflects on finding recuperation through performative works like “Healing” (2010), in which audiences watched as Gulgee’s fellow artists shaved his head. He reenacted the performance as *Healing II* in the midst of death in the pandemic, this time without onlookers. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/04/amin-gulgee-healing-ii-turmeric.jpg)

From Amin Gulgee, "Healing II" (2020) (screenshot *Hyperallergic*, used with permission of the artist)

A heartfelt note by the artist, printed adjacent to a drawing, “Portrait of My Son (1982), sketched by the [senior Gulgee](https://images.dawn.com/news/1193261/the-gulgee-museum-in-karachi-is-a-sons-tribute-to-a-master?ref=hyperallergic.com), informs us that the book’s contributors — comprising artists, curators, art historians, a political scientist, and an author — were given no restrictions on their essays. That freedom facilitated distinctive approaches: a quirky essay by artist-curator Alexi Worth, who playfully mentions Gulgee’s eccentric social antics, and a piece by academic Gemma Sharpe placing his performance in conversation with that of other Pakistani artists such as Durriya Kazi and the late Ali Imam, as well as Marina Abramović. 

It speaks volumes about the values of prioritizing commercial success over critical artistic discourse in Pakistani publishing that, despite Gulgee’s influence, *No Man’s Land* is the first comprehensive monograph on the artist. It certainly should not be the last.

[Amin Gulgee: No Man’s Land](http://bookshop.org/a/9788857252926?ref=hyperallergic.com) *(2025), edited by John McCarry, is published by Skira and is available online and through independent booksellers.*