At La Biennale di Venezia, Bangladesh’s maiden venture is a morceau of cutting edge creativity from Bangladesh. We present five talented artists whose respective fortes draw from their forbearers, but who are at the same time, engaged in building defining pathways from here to the beyond. Imran Hossain Piplu, Kabir Ahmed Masum Chisty, Mahbubur Rahman, Promotesh Das Pulak and Tayeba Begum Lipi all celebrate their contemporary experience in, perhaps not the sublime, but in refreshingly evocative expressions.

We call this selection “Parables” – principally because of the capacity of each of the artist to pack in experience and meaning – alluding, challenging and opening eyes; and hence parables. The angst, the yearning and an interesting capacity to blend the autobiographical with the collective provide a distinctive narrative of our times. My role in the following segments is to walk you through the creative profile of the five artists as I know them, and to provide a window into the works they bring to La Biennale di Venezia.

I have known Mahbub since when he was literally an artist in the making. He was spontaneous, boldly expressive - even irreverent. Because he was young and unabashed about what moved him and how he responded to these impulses from within and without, it was possible for someone who engaged with him to “read” him, so to speak. Over the last close to two decades, he has retained his refreshing disposition and vibrancy, principally because he has continued to explore, challenge and assimilate; and in the process, to reinvent his creative space. Initially, while his work focused on the potential of the visual form, his creative output today is shaped by intellection, and is presented in unpredictable, often shockingly bizarre forms.

Mahbub impressed me from the beginning as what I would call the Bacchic. Despite his solid grounding in academic work, especially in drawing, he exhibited a natural tendency to focus his creative élan on the not so ordered, not so predictable, not the delicate. Many could find his work difficult to categorise – he moves from painting to sculpture, or simply to impart value to space or to objects and how they are ordered. His aesthetic immersion has been in the apparently disorderly, connecting with and creating meaning from the unexpected and the unusual, through breathtaking images and installations; and more importantly, leading us through that intense process of intellection.