Die & be Buried with Vinyl

TOYKIO gallery – Image courtesy TOYKIO.de website

At the moment, I’m living one block down from possibly the coolest bloody art gallery-cafe in the whole fucking world: TOYKIO. It showcases ‘Urban Art Scene, Lowbrow Art, Pop-Surealism und [and] Photography’. Occasionally, it shows ‘Editions & Multiples of Artists like Banksy, JR, Mark Ryden, Shepard Fairey, Ricky Powell, Swoon & D*face – just to name a few.’ 

So there are artworks on the walls and the gallery downstairs, lots and lots of books on shelves and tables, countless limited edition artist series toys and some good coffee.

Follow TOYKIO on Facebook and Instagram…because you’ll want to.

Books – Image courtesy Toykio Instagram

Toys – Image courtesy Toykio Instagram

Wall – Image courtesy Toykio Instagram

Umm…WOW. I want to die and be buried here. But instead I chose the next best option – I go there nearly everyday and have a glass of warm Maple Latte and a squishy slice of Chocolate Cherry cake while I read my own book or browse through the multitude of free Art magazines and other publications. And I just soak it all in, and dream of such a place in Pakistan, away from the sordid hands of ‘aunty collectors’.

ART – magazine-cover

And on one fine day, as I flipped through one of these magazines, I discovered a feature on Pakistani artists and galleries! I was so surprised I did a little dance in my seat, whooped with joy and took photos with my phone to share it back home.

The magazine was ‘Art – Das Kunstmagazin‘ (September 2012), and so the article was in Deutsch. My basic ‘German I’ language course in 2004 only got me so far as to get minor details. Pointless details actually. But anyway it talked about the architect Naeem Pasha, featured work of the fabulous Shazia Sikander and also had snippets of discussion and images of work by Mahreen Zuberi and Imran Mudassar (both miniaturists) and Sophia Khawaja (printmaker). There was a picture of Quddsia Rahim (the curator at NCA’s Zahoor ul Akhlaq gallery) and another of Aqeel Solangi from the ‘30 Years of Rohtas‘ show that was held at the National Art Gallery (NAG).

I’ve posted some photos below. They’ve been taken from my cell phone so please enjoy the shit quality.

Lined up after Christmas, I hope to catch some time with the Owner of the gallery Selim Varol and talk about the artists he shows, how he knows some of them personally and generally how shit my blog is. Can’t wait!

ART magazine with my latte and chocolate cake

Shazia Sikander, Naeem Pasha in ART magazine – inset 1

Qudsia Rahim, Aqeel Solangi in ART magazine – inset 2

Murakami’s ‘Kafka On the Shore’ with my cake. What I was originally reading (and which the woman behind the cashier desk gave two thumbs up to!)

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