The artworks in San Gimignano
The exhibition, installed in the Torre Grossa of the Museo Civico, the historic city hall of San Gimignano, contained three sections:
Niche paper installations:
Ascending the staircase, the niches of the historic tower were filled with crumpled paper, which at first appeared to be bloodied rags, but upon closer inspection contained images of Imran Qureshi's artworks, with designs of flower petals emerging from blood splatters. These images filling the empty spaces of the tower were a tribute to the human lives upon which such structures are often built.
Miniature paintings:
On the penultimate floor five miniature paintings were shown. Using the techniques of traditional Pakistani miniature paintings, these images depicted the towers of San Gimignano and the installations Imran Qureshi has created there. The viewer was drawn into these works, recognizing the location in which they were currently standing as the subject of the works.
Site-specific floor painting:
The uppermost level of the tower provides a beautiful panoramic view of the territory surrounding San Gimignano. Here there was a change of scale. Imran Qureshi has created a site-specific floor painting, in which flower petals and leaves emerged from what appeared to be the bloody carnage of a violent act. The artwork encouraged the visitor to reflect upon the violence for which walled cities and towers were built as a defense against, and the battles which raged across what today appears as a peaceful pastoral landscape surrounding San Gimignano. The work also explored what is public and what is hidden: the tower is very much in the open air, but is a hidden space, not visible from the ground level.