Bass & Reiner gallery is pleased to present Future Faithful: Islamic Experiments in Space Exploration and Posthumanism, the first solo exhibition of multidisciplinary artist Zulfikar Ali Bhutto with the gallery. Conceived as an investigation on post-utopian and post-human worlds, the exhibition promotes an experimental dystopian universe anchored in a semi-religious futurist aesthetic, mirroring a side of our current reality, while promoting an alternative. 

In this series presented, Islam is used as vehicle to propel the futurist imagination by looking into its occult practices, mysticism, and the evolution of its politicization. The omnipresence of the Bull figure throughout the works is a direct reference to the first chapter of the Holy Quran - prologue titled Al-Baqarah, The Heifer.  In the holy book. the site of Prophet Muhammad’s first mosque is chosen by his female camel, while the Prophet himself is taken to heaven by a beautiful androgynous half human, half winged mule creature named Buraq - Lightning Bolt. Bhutto takes his inspiration from the scriptures, but creates a new narrative, inviting a manish figure to merge with the divine. 

As part of the installation, Bhutto utilizes video and fabric installations to bring to life a daunting future as part of his current series, Tomorrow We Inherit the Earth. While the video serves as a pseudo documentary, utilizing animation and archival footage to build a narrative around a fictitious revolution, the textile works are created to honor real and imagined queer guerrilla fighters from Shiite Muslim traditions of martyr and saint veneration. 

As the artist states, “in a capitalist world where the wealthy get to board private planes to leave behind disease and warfare, queer Muslim future rebel leaders use the technologies of divination, numerology and guerrilla style engineering to secure the lives of those in need.”

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (b. Damascus, 1990) is a visual artist, performer and curator. Bhutto’s work explores complex histories of colonialism that are exacerbated by contemporary international politics and in the process unpacks the intersections of queerness and Islam through a multi-media practice. Bhutto was curatorial resident at SOMArts Cultural Center where he co-curated, The Third Muslim: Queer and Trans Muslim Narratives of Resistance and Resilience and has shown in galleries, museums and theaters globally. He has spoken extensively on the intersections of faith, radical thought and futurity at Columbia University, UC Berkeley, NYU, The California College of the Arts and Mills College. Bhutto is currently based between San Francisco, California where he received an MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2016 and Karachi, Pakistan where he was raised.

Image : 

Mustaq-bel 2 مستقبیل ۲

2019.  Courtesy of the artist