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Until now Pakistan's art scene has been largely private, hidden away in small galleries or elite living rooms. The curator of the current exhibition, Naiza Khan, who is herself a prominent artist, was determined to open contemporary art to a wider Pakistani public.

To do so she brought Breitling Navitimer Quartz Chrono BT-178 important works by two of Pakistan's star contemporary artists, Rashid Rana and Imran Qureshi, from Dubai and Hong Kong (a painting by Mr Qureshi is shown below). She also invited contributions from two young artists--Abdullah Syed and Nusra Latif Qureshi--who work in Australia.

Mr Syed assembled a mobile of dozens of miniature drones made from box cutters, a silvery fleet of the American death machines that hunt and kill the Taliban in Pakistan's tribal areas. That many of the works deal with death and violence is hardly surprising. In Karachi alone more than 1,350 people have been killed in Breitling Navitimer Quartz Chrono BT-179 streets so far this year, many of them in the drive-by shootings that have become the tragic hallmark of a war of ethnic rivalries.

But Ms Khan has been careful not to overdo the violence. In choosing the art, her emphasis is on exploring the urban condition of a country struggling to withstand a Breitling Navitimer Quartz Chrono BT-214 complicated internal war. That means dealing not only with missiles and bombings but also with demographics, land usage and history.

In many respects, the exhibition demonstrates the maturing of the spirit that grew out of the artistic rebellion against the military dictatorship of General Zia ul Haq in the 1980s. In those years artists had to work furtively in hidden studios. In the early 1990s far-sighted art administrators struggled to expand Breitling Navitimer Quartz Chrono BT-217 handful of art schools.

Now competition to get into such colleges is fierce. A young art entrepreneur, Umer Butt, whose gallery Grey Noise in Lahore lent works to the show, aspires to be an influential dealer. "Rising Tide" suggests that Pakistani artists do not have to go abroad, though some still do, to express their country's turmoil.