WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU SEE
Imran Mir was a pioneering Pakistani artist and designer who challenged conventions through bold minimalism and experimental color. After studying at CIAC Karachi and Ontario College of Art and Design, he returned to Pakistan in 1978 with a modernist approach that established him as the country's premiere design guru.
His artistic practice, organized into twelve theoretical Papers on Modern Art, has been exhibited internationally at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, National Museum of Qatar, Grosvenor Gallery London, and Mohatta Palace Museum Karachi, alongside galleries in the USA, Netherlands, India, and Sri Lanka. His revolutionary commercial work created iconic Pakistani brands like MCB, Dawn News, and Shan Masala.
At 36th São Paulo Biennale
Imran Mir travels to Santiago. A selection from the 36th Bienal de São Paulo opens at Centro Cultural La Moneda, the tour's only South American stop. On view July 3 to October 4, 2026.
Following its main run in São Paulo, the 36th Bienal, Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice, travels to Chile. Mir's geometric abstractions from the Papers on Modern Art join 19 artists across four continents at Centro Cultural La Moneda in Santiago, the tour's first international stop and its only one in South America.







When curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung placed Pakistani artist Imran Mir alongside Mozambican-Italian painter Bertina Lopes at the 2025 São Paulo Biennial, the pairing revealed profound parallels in postcolonial modernism. Both transformed geometric abstraction into vehicles for cultural resistance, synthesizing local traditions with international artistic languages to assert identity through exile and displacement.