Karachi Biennale criticized for response to Rao Anwar installation.

Artists expressed their outrage on Monday as the organizers of the Karachi Biennale shared a statement that saying a controversial art installation was "not compatible" with its theme.

The theme was 'Ecology and the Environment', and the installation called 'The Killing Fields of Karachi'. From artist Adeela Suleman, the installation was at display in Karachi's Frere Hall, featuring symbolic gravestones that represented the 444 people killed allegedly through extra-judicial means at the behest of Rao Anwar, a senior Karachi police official.

The head of the Parks department of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation said that the work was "vandalism", and could not be referred to as art.

The Biennale post read: '[We] feel that politicizing the platform will go against our efforts to bring art into the public and drawing artists from the fringe to the mainstream cultural discourse,' it said, adding, 'while art is self-expression, the theme this year did not warrant...