The art of the 1970s in Bangladesh was made in the shadow of the Liberation War. Some painters turned to direct images of violence; others found that only distortion, fragments or silence could carry the weight of what they had seen.
This essay reads a group of works from 1972 to 1980 as testimony. It asks what it means for a painting to bear witness, and why many of the strongest works avoid showing the event itself.
Bearing witness without showing
Some pictures remember by refusing to show.
The questions remain open. Each generation returns to 1971 with new tools, and each return changes how the earlier works are seen.
