Dear Ahmed Pervez,

You would be delighted to know that Karachi just experienced a treat this summer with your posthumous solo show at VM Art Gallery. The event warrants a congratulatory letter and an excuse to write to a master of Modern Art in South Asia. Way back, as seekers of knowledge, we were told that a "back to the future debate" can enable us to understand where we came from and where we're going. Your art practically illustrates the result of such an approach. Creatives today should follow you to decode the "Eastern Modernist" values in art. Yes, there's a tinge of sarcasm in my comment, ridiculing those who, despite claiming the modern art movement's universal significance, only approved art produced in Europe or the United States as truly modernist.

Modernist art from a non-Western milieu was regarded in Europe and the United States as coming "from the margins" and thus scarcely worthy of consideration within the modernist canon. You were an exception, perhaps celebrated more abroad than........

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