The Asia Society Collectors Series: Amna & Ali Naqvi Art Collection

Amna and Ali Naqvi's art collection began 17 years ago with the purchase of a painting, the first thing the couple ever bought together and now comprises of over 700 works. The collection began with Pakistani contemporary and modern art, and then evolved into an Asian collection with art from China, India, Indonesia, and Japan as they moved and traveled through Asia. Starting with 3rd century Gandhara Buddhist sculptures, Amna Naqvi will take us through her Pakistani art collection as well as contemporary pieces by artists like Shahzia Sikandar, Aisha Khalid, Takashi Murakami, Imran Qureshi and Rashid Rana. While highlighting the artists’ contribution and significance to Pakistani contemporary art, Amna will also discuss their personal motivation to add the piece to their collection. In Amna's own words, "... what excites us most about collecting contemporary work, is that they speak in the voice of our time and our generation, and continually stretch and break boundaries." Amna Naqvi worked in the corporate world for many years before trading in her career to raise a family. A few years ago, she started a gallery to introduce Pakistani contemporary art into the international art scene. Several pieces from the collection have been loaned to museums around the world.

New York Times - Hanging Fire - Pakistan’s Palette of Blood and Tears

Source: NYT

KARACHI, Pakistan — In this chaotic city of 18 million people, an exhibition of works by Pakistan’s most significant contemporary artists shows just how imbued with violence daily life here is: on the street, in the air and in the debate about the future course of the nation. Installed in the elegant rooms of the Mohatta Palace Museum, a confection of Mughal architecture in pink stone, the exhibition, “The Rising Tide: New Direction in Art From Pakistan,” includes more than 40 canvases, videos, installations, mobiles and sculptures made in the past 20 years. Its curator, the feminist sculptor and painter Naiza Khan, said her aim was to show the coming of age of Pakistani art, which blossomed when censorship was lifted after the death of the American-backed Islamic dictator Gen. Zia ul-Haq. Violence was not an intended theme. “I wanted the works to reflect the many strands of the urban condition,” Ms. Khan said in her light-filled studio in an upscale neighborhood here. But the corrosive impact of Pakistan’s struggle with Islamic militants, its tortured relationship with the United States and the effects of an all-powerful military pervade the show. The artist Abdullah Syed, for example, assembled a fleet of drones — the pilotless American aircraft that fire missiles at militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas — constructed from the blades of box cutters, the very instruments used by some of the 9/11 attackers. They float on wires just above the viewer’s head, the silvery blades shimmering menacingly in bright light. A second fleet of drones is constructed from dollar bills folded into the shape of the planes and stapled together in circular patterns that resemble those of an oriental carpet. Called the “Flying Rug,” the paper fleet casts an ominous shadow on a nearby wall. Mr. Syed, one of several artists in the show pursuing a career abroad, teaches at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “I’m always navigating ideas between the West and here,” he said, perched on a ladder as he hung his killer fleets. The “Flying Rug” takes sides: “I’m saying, ‘To hell with Uncle Sam.’ ” Though in the West the drones are often seen as an essential element in the fight against terrorism, in Pakistan they are considered imperial interference by the United States, he said. In the show’s catalog Mr. Syed notes that according to one estimate, drones have killed more than 1,000 Pakistani civilians since 2004. Many more civilians have fled the tribal areas and settled in Karachi to escape the attacks, an influx that has sharpened the city’s political tensions. In recent years work by Pakistani artists has begun appearing in museum shows outside the country — in Paris, London and Dubai. Ms. Khan wanted to bring them home, to show the strength and variety of their projects. Among her choices are Rashid Rana, whose “Desperately Seeking Paradise,” a huge metal cube covered in photographs of the dilapidated residential buildings of Lahore, appeared at the Musée Guimet in Paris recently; and Imran Qureshi and Anwar Saeed, whose works appeared in “Hanging Fire,” a survey of Pakistani art at Asia Society in Manhattan last year. Mr. Qureshi is a leader in the modern school of Pakistani miniature painting derived from the court painters of the Mughal era. But rather than paint delicate images of princes and princesses, modern miniaturists have expanded their vocabulary. Ms. Khan chose a Qureshi miniature of a missile, painted after Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998. Also on display is a large-scale triptych panel by Mr. Qureshi of drips and splotches executed in a lush pomegranate hue. Or is that the color of blood? Part of what differentiates this exhibition from the recent shows of Pakistani art in New York and Dubai is the inclusion of young people fresh out of the country’s growing number of art schools. Sara Khan, 24, a recent graduate from the art department at Karachi University, is from the Pashtun ethnic group, whose traditional homeland is in the turbulent tribal areas in northwest Pakistan, where the army is embroiled in fighting militants. To escape the lack of development in the region, many Pashtuns have moved to Karachi in the past 30 years, among them Ms. Khan’s relatives. Ms. Khan, who was born here and has never been to the tribal areas, doesn’t even speak Pashto. “They call me a fake Pashtun,” she said in an interview. In her work Ms. Khan uses emblems of Pashtun culture painted in the style of a children’s primer on pages sized to resemble a school exercise book. Among the images: an AK-47 rifle — the standard-issue weapon of the tribal zone — a bullet and a series of domestic items, including bread, milk and eggs. “Pashtuns are very strong, but I am showing emblems in a soft way,” she said. “I am saying, ‘We are not exactly what you think we are.’ ” A simple two-part work by Risham Syed reflects the violence that many urban, middle-class Pakistanis feel. A red wall lamp similar to those that hang in the homes of the well-to-do in Lahore, in northeastern Pakistan, is juxtaposed with a tiny 4-by-6-inch canvas, painted in a brutally realistic style. It shows a lone man in Islamic religious garb futilely trying to damp down a wall of flames that engulf a building. Ms. Syed, who teaches art at Beaconhouse National University in Lahore, seems to be edging close to the question some Pakistanis are raising gingerly about the responsibility of extremist clergy for the wave of suicide bombings in the nation’s cities. Ms. Khan, the curator, took a year away from her studio in Karachi to put the show together. She felt strongly, she said, that even though fear and violence emerged as central themes in the art, Karachi should be seen as more than just a city of gangland killings and ethnically directed shootings. “It means a lot to me to bring art center stage at a time when so much is denied in the country,” she said.

 

The feminist sculptor and painter Naiza Khan, who curates the exhibition, said her aim was to show the coming of age of Pakistani art By JANE PERLEZ December 17, 2010                 “It means a lot to me to bring art center stage at a time when so much is denied in the country,” she said.

KARACHI, Pakistan — In this chaotic city of 18 million people, an exhibition of works by Pakistan’s most significant contemporary artists shows just how imbued with violence daily life here is: on the street, in the air and in the debate about the future course of the nation. Installed in the elegant rooms of the Mohatta Palace Museum, a confection of Mughal architecture in pink stone, the exhibition, “The Rising Tide: New Direction in Art From Pakistan,” includes more than 40 canvases, videos, installations, mobiles and sculptures made in the past 20 years. Its curator, the feminist sculptor and painter Naiza Khan, said her aim was to show the coming of age of Pakistani art, which blossomed when censorship was lifted after the death of the American-backed Islamic dictator Gen. Zia ul-Haq. Violence was not an intended theme. “I wanted the works to reflect the many strands of the urban condition,” Ms. Khan said in her light-filled studio in an upscale neighborhood here. But the corrosive impact of Pakistan’s struggle with Islamic militants, its tortured relationship with the United States and the effects of an all-powerful military pervade the show. The artist Abdullah Syed, for example, assembled a fleet of drones — the pilotless American aircraft that fire missiles at militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas — constructed from the blades of box cutters, the very instruments used by some of the 9/11 attackers. They float on wires just above the viewer’s head, the silvery blades shimmering menacingly in bright light. A second fleet of drones is constructed from dollar bills folded into the shape of the planes and stapled together in circular patterns that resemble those of an oriental carpet. Called the “Flying Rug,” the paper fleet casts an ominous shadow on a nearby wall. Mr. Syed, one of several artists in the show pursuing a career abroad, teaches at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “I’m always navigating ideas between the West and here,” he said, perched on a ladder as he hung his killer fleets. The “Flying Rug” takes sides: “I’m saying, ‘To hell with Uncle Sam.’ ” Though in the West the drones are often seen as an essential element in the fight against terrorism, in Pakistan they are considered imperial interference by the United States, he said. In the show’s catalog Mr. Syed notes that according to one estimate, drones have killed more than 1,000 Pakistani civilians since 2004. Many more civilians have fled the tribal areas and settled in Karachi to escape the attacks, an influx that has sharpened the city’s political tensions. In recent years work by Pakistani artists has begun appearing in museum shows outside the country — in Paris, London and Dubai. Ms. Khan wanted to bring them home, to show the strength and variety of their projects. Among her choices are Rashid Rana, whose “Desperately Seeking Paradise,” a huge metal cube covered in photographs of the dilapidated residential buildings of Lahore, appeared at the Musée Guimet in Paris recently; and Imran Qureshi and Anwar Saeed, whose works appeared in “Hanging Fire,” a survey of Pakistani art at Asia Society in Manhattan last year. Mr. Qureshi is a leader in the modern school of Pakistani miniature painting derived from the court painters of the Mughal era. But rather than paint delicate images of princes and princesses, modern miniaturists have expanded their vocabulary. Ms. Khan chose a Qureshi miniature of a missile, painted after Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998. Also on display is a large-scale triptych panel by Mr. Qureshi of drips and splotches executed in a lush pomegranate hue. Or is that the color of blood? Part of what differentiates this exhibition from the recent shows of Pakistani art in New York and Dubai is the inclusion of young people fresh out of the country’s growing number of art schools. Sara Khan, 24, a recent graduate from the art department at Karachi University, is from the Pashtun ethnic group, whose traditional homeland is in the turbulent tribal areas in northwest Pakistan, where the army is embroiled in fighting militants. To escape the lack of development in the region, many Pashtuns have moved to Karachi in the past 30 years, among them Ms. Khan’s relatives. Ms. Khan, who was born here and has never been to the tribal areas, doesn’t even speak Pashto. “They call me a fake Pashtun,” she said in an interview. In her work Ms. Khan uses emblems of Pashtun culture painted in the style of a children’s primer on pages sized to resemble a school exercise book. Among the images: an AK-47 rifle — the standard-issue weapon of the tribal zone — a bullet and a series of domestic items, including bread, milk and eggs. “Pashtuns are very strong, but I am showing emblems in a soft way,” she said. “I am saying, ‘We are not exactly what you think we are.’ ” A simple two-part work by Risham Syed reflects the violence that many urban, middle-class Pakistanis feel. A red wall lamp similar to those that hang in the homes of the well-to-do in Lahore, in northeastern Pakistan, is juxtaposed with a tiny 4-by-6-inch canvas, painted in a brutally realistic style. It shows a lone man in Islamic religious garb futilely trying to damp down a wall of flames that engulf a building. Ms. Syed, who teaches art at Beaconhouse National University in Lahore, seems to be edging close to the question some Pakistanis are raising gingerly about the responsibility of extremist clergy for the wave of suicide bombings in the nation’s cities. Ms. Khan, the curator, took a year away from her studio in Karachi to put the show together. She felt strongly, she said, that even though fear and violence emerged as central themes in the art, Karachi should be seen as more than just a city of gangland killings and ethnically directed shootings. “It means a lot to me to bring art center stage at a time when so much is denied in the country,” she said.

 

Mirror images - Spicing up Musée Guimet - Economist

Source: Economist

EMILE GUIMET’S bequest of the Asian treasures he had bought on a round-the-world tour in the 1870s fuelled the French craze for Asian antiquities and helped put the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques on a par with the British Museum and the Baur Collection in Geneva.

This summer the French collection has added a twist. Amid a huge show that ranges over eight centuries of Ghandara statues devoted to depicting the face of Buddha, are scattered the works of a playful and eagerly collected young Pakistani photographer, Rashid Rana.

Using computer software to mix his images, Mr Rana creates works that are both ironic and disturbing. A giant box (pictured) that seems from a distance to depict a city skyline is actually made up, when you get close, of hundreds of small photographs of houses in Lahore, a teeming mosaic of urbanity that includes shops, traffic and dusty street corners. Similarly the postage-stamp squares of scenes from a slaughterhouse—pale carcasses, spilled blood and amputated limbs—when you step back, are arranged to depict, in all its richness and comfort, a red oriental carpet. A show to look at over and over.

Songs of the Saints, With Love, From Pakistan - NY Times

Source: NY Times


Joshua Bright for The New York Times


The Soung Fakirs at the New York Sufi Music Festival on Tuesday in Union Square.

By JON PARELES

Hands waved overhead. Voices shouted lyrics and whooped with delight. Children were hoisted onto parents’ shoulders. In the tightly packed crowd a few dancers made room to jump. T-shirts were tossed to fans from the stage.

Yet in the songs that Abida Parveen was singing, saints were praised. They were Islamic saints, the poets and philosophers revered by Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam.

It was the first New York Sufi Music Festival, a free three-hour concert on Tuesday in Union Square, and it had music from the four provinces of Pakistan, including traditional faqirs who perform outside temples, Sufi rock and a kind of rapping from Baluchistan.

The concert was presented by a new organization called Pakistani Peace Builders, which was formed after the attempted bombing in Times Square by a Pakistani-American. The group seeks to counteract negative images of Pakistan by presenting a longtime Pakistani Islamic tradition that preaches love, peace and tolerance.

Sufism itself has been a target of Islamic fundamentalists; on July 1 suicide bombers attacked Pakistan’s most important Sufi shrine. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations, Abdullah Hussain Haroon, spoke between sets on Tuesday. “What we’re here to do today,” he said, is “to be at peace with all of America.”

The music’s message was one of joyful devotion and improvisatory freedom. Ms. Parveen, one of Pakistan’s most celebrated musicians, was singing in a Sufi style called kafi. Like the qawwali music popularized worldwide by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, kafi sets classical poems — about the love and intoxication of the divine, about seeking the spirit within — to visceral, handclapping rhythms and vocal lines that swoop and twist with passionate volatility.

Ms. Parveen carried songs from serene, hovering introductions to virtuosic euphoria. Long, sustained notes suddenly broke into phrases that zigzagged up and down an octave or more; repeated refrains took on an insistent rasp and became springboards for elaborate leaps and arabesques; quick syllables turned into percussive exchanges with the band. Each song was a continual revelation, making the old poems fully alive.

While the crowd was there for Ms. Parveen’s first New York City performance in a decade, the rest of the program was strong. The Soung Fakirs, from Sachal Sarmast Shrine in Sindh, danced in bright orange robes to devotional songs with vigorous, incantatory choruses. Akhtar Chanal Zehri, though he was introduced as a rapper, was backed by traditional instruments and seemed more of a folk singer, heartily intoning his rhythmic lyrics on a repeating note or two and, eventually, twirling like a Sufi dervish.

Rafaqat Ali Khan, the heir to his family’s school of classical singing (khayal), was backed only by percussion, pushing his long-breathed phrasing into ever more flamboyant swirls and quavers. The tabla player Tari Khan, who also accompanied Rafaqat Ali Khan, played a kinetic solo set that carried a 4/4 rhythm through variants from the Middle East, Europe, New York City and (joined by two more drummers) Africa. There was also instrumental music from the bansuri (wooden flute) player Ghaus Box Brohi.

On the modernizing side, Zeb and Haniya, two Pakistani women who started their duo as college students at Mount Holyoke and Smith, performed gentler songs in the Dari tradition, a Pakistani style with Central Asian roots, with Haniya adding syncopated electric guitar behind Zeb’s smoky voice. Under wooden flute and classical-style vocals the Mekaal Hasan Band plugged in with reggae, folk-rock and a tricky jazz-rock riff. But the lyrics quoted devotional poetry that was 900 years old, distant from the turmoil of the present.

‘Heat Wave’: Lombard-Freid Projects

By HOLLAND COTTER

Source: NY Times

One of Bani Abidi’s photographs of Christian and Hindu residents of Karachi, Pakistan, during Ramadan, from the exhibition “Heat Wave” at Lombard-Freid Projects in Chelsea.

Lombard-Freid Projects, which moves to a new Chelsea address in September, closes out its tenure in its current digs with a show of five youngish international artists, all of them interesting, even if they don’t come across at full strength here.

Atmospheric photographs by Bani Abidi, who was born in Pakistan, make the strongest impression. In them, individual residents of Karachi are seen alone at dusk in a neighborhood street, doing chores or relaxing as if they were in their homes. Dates in the titles indicate that the pictures were taken during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, though the people portrayed are members of the city’s Hindu and Christian minorities. They look at once isolated and conspicuous.

Mural-size cartoon fantasies by the Indonesian artist Eko Nugroho were a hit of the 2007 Asia Pacific Triennial, and the small drawings and embroideries in this show of human figures with architectural appendages catch something of their surreal flavor.

Mounira al Solh, born in Lebanon, shows photographs and a video focused on a clubby group of middle-aged men in Beirut who pass their days, in times of war and peace, working on their tans.

War, or conflict, is the overt subject of work by two artists, Noa Charuvi and Maya Schindler, born in Israel and now living in New York. Ms. Charuvi’s semi-abstract paintings of ruined homes in Gaza are effective in being slow to register their exact content. Ms. Schindler’s installation of paint-stiffened flags and graffiti-style paintings feels at once hectoring and vague.

Fikret Atay’s video “Batman vs. Batman” is about a very specific conflict, though one that could not be described as dire. Mr. Atay introduces us to the mayor of his hometown, Batman, Turkey, who in 2009 was suing Warner Brothers over rights to the city’s name, which has been appropriated (according to the suit) by a certain American action hero. The mayor, an amused and amusing man, energetically presents his case for Mr. Atay’s consideration, then shrugs and basically says, “Hey, what do I have to lose?” — a nicely judged exit sentiment for a heavy-light show. HOLLAND COTTER

Rashid Rana at the Musée Guimet, review - Telegraph

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

France’s national museum of Asian art is being transformed by the integration of contemporary work by Pakistani artist Rashid Rana into its collection.

By Gareth Harris

Inviting closer inspection: A detail from Rashid Rana's Red Carpet

A quiet revolution took place in the French museum world this week. Over 20 works by leading Pakistani artist Rashid Rana went on show at the venerable Musée Guimet, France’s national museum of Asian art (‘Perpetual Paradoxes’, until 15 November).

For the first time, contemporary works have been integrated into the museum’s permanent collections with Rana’s striking digital photomontages and sculptures, dating from 1992 to today, placed alongside ancient Buddha statuettes and effigies of revered deities over two floors.

Guest curators Arianne Levene and Eglantine de Ganay of A&E Projects have managed to maintain the delicate art ecosystem of the Guimet, with Rana’s intriguing, rather than imposing, interventions inviting closer inspection (always a sign of intelligent art).

The most in-your-face piece is ‘Desperately Seeking Paradise’ (2007-8), a Kaba-esque stainless steel cube sliced through with pixelated images of Lahore. The work throws up a plethora of issues about the interplay between 2D and 3D perspectives (the city photography springs to life in the mirrored reflection of the cube’s grid structure), a technical and thematic transmutation deftly developed by Rana.

“I have always been interested in the ‘idea of two-dimensionality’; it has manifested [itself] in the form of a grid which has inadvertently, and more often advertently, always been present in my work, from my deceptively abstract grid paintings of the early 1990s to recent pixel-based photo works of recent years,” explains Rana.

‘Desperately Seeking Paradise’, a conglomeration of numerous minuscule details, sets the tone for the show. Looking beyond the basic form of the work is key to assimilating the art. ‘Red Carpet-1’ (C print, 2007), resembles a traditional Persian rug but look closely, and you’ll find that the garish red detail derives from the blood of slaughtered animals (this 21st-century mosaic is actually an assemblage of images taken in the abattoirs of Lahore). Meanwhile, an early digital print, ‘I Love Miniatures’ (2002), turns out to be a historic Mughal portrait composed from a multitude of small-scale billboard advert imagery (Rana, it appears, enjoys making mischief).

Subsequently, most of the imagery blurs into abstraction and nothing remains concrete. Even the carnal acts of a pornographic image (‘Sites-1’, 2009) are indecipherable, a mass of pixelated cubes melded together through a palette of pinks and purples (these component parts are taken from fashion and science magazines; once again, Rana builds an entity from the most disparate of sources).

But what’s the motivation? “To puzzle the audience is not the main objective; it’s more to do with taking fragments to create something very familiar. But when one looks at both the bigger and smaller picture together, it is then that preconceived notions about certain phenomena are challenged. Then they (the audience) make new connections and a meaning through very familiar imagery.

The aim is to make the viewer challenge stereotypes,” comments the artist. There is tension between what the eye sees and misses (the view of the whole and its accumulated parts) as well as tension between artifice and reality (ornate carpets vs. animal butchery).

And crucially, how has the museum reacted? Jacques Giès, president of the Musée Guimet, realises that a modern institution must reflect the link between heritage and contemporary life:

“The museum is much more than a safety-deposit box for antiques. In view of the value of the Asian dynamic in our modern-day world – where Asian cultures are for the first time in Western history making a place for themselves that grows larger every day- the time has come, we believe, to reflect on and reconsider our notion of the museum.”

Rashid Rana: a 'Perpetual Paradox' - Interview on France24

Source: France24

Click on the title to see the interview

Musee Guimet - Rashid Rana - video clip

Rashid Rana - Musee Guimet exhibition - Opening Night

Perpetual Paradox opened with great fanfare at Musee Guimet. Pakistan Art News (PAN) is told that Rashid was treated like a rock star (and that he is!). Enjoy the opening's photographs.

Contemporary art - Art-fair musical chairs

by The Economist.

Contemporary art

Global frameworks
Art-fair musical chairs
Jun 24th 2010 Basel

CONTEMPORARY art is a futures market in which “derivative” is a bad word. Art Basel, which ended on June 20th, heard a lot of phrases adapted from the financial markets. To be a good bet against near-zero interest rates and unpredictable currency fluctuations, art needs the potential of a global market. Thus, “local artist” has become a synonym for insignificant artist and “national” damns with faint praise. “International” is now a selling point in itself.

Aided by banks and royalty, international art fairs are spreading belief in contemporary art. UBS sponsors Art Basel and its sister fair, Art Basel Miami Beach; Deutsche Bank subsidises London’s Frieze Fair and the Hong Kong International Art Fair. In the Middle East, local rulers are patrons of Art Dubai and Abu Dhabi Art.

Art fairs accelerate the transnational exposure of artists and Art Basel is the unrivalled leader in this, partly because it has always defined itself as international. This year, its 41st, the fair featured 300 galleries from 37 countries. Careful curation is required for this global mix to be properly diverse. As Lucy Mitchell-Innes of Mitchell-Innes & Nash, a New York gallery, warns: “It’s a problem if four or five booths have the same artist’s work. A good international fair wants Chinese galleries to bring talented Chinese artists, not another Antony Gormley.”

There are many components to the globalisation of art. Marc Spiegler and Annette Schönholzer, co-directors of Art Basel, suggest that private collections internationalise in the process of becoming more serious. “Collectors often start by acquiring art from their own nation, then their own region, then finally internationally,” explains Mr Spiegler.

The hierarchy of fairs is different from the auction market. The top three cities for auctions are New York, London and Hong Kong, in that order. But the hierarchy of fairs is in dispute. Everyone agrees that Basel comes first, but it is unclear which comes next: Miami or London. Or if New York, with the Armory Show and Art Dealers Association of America show, or Paris with FIAC, is third. The situation in the lower tiers is even more volatile. Madrid’s ARCO fair used to be the most important fair for South and Latin American galleries but it has been usurped by Miami. Now ARCO is perceived as an afternoon of cultural exposure for Spanish punters rather than a pressing business occasion.

Two newcomers are shaking things up. The Hong Kong International Art Fair, which took place at the end of May, boasted 155 galleries from 29 countries. Hong Kong is the financial and geographical centre of Asia, a transport hub where people from West and East feel equally at home, and there are no duties on art. Lehmann Maupin, a New York gallery, was one of many delighted with the results. As the primary dealer on a range of Asian artists including Do Ho Suh, a well-known South Korean, Lehmann Maupin’s inventory proved attractive to the pan-Asian audience that had flown into town.

The other fair that is the subject of much discussion is Abu Dhabi Art. Last November it welcomed 50 galleries from 19 countries as a first move towards interesting visitors in a vast museum building project that will see its first openings in 2013. David Zwirner Gallery was convinced to participate in the next edition of the fair by Richard Armstrong, director of the Guggenheim Museum. As Mr Zwirner explained, “The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will open soon, so it has to get cracking with its acquisition programme. The fair is therefore a key venue. My business model relies on museums educating the public.”

The globalisation of art is not all about money. A growing number of not-for- profit biennials are being developed alongside the market structures. Massimiliano Gioni, a curator based in Milan and New York, who is overseeing the Gwangju biennial, which opens in South Korea in September, recalls that the avant-garde was “built on a transnational community of kindred spirits,” adding, “sometimes I long for that.” Art has often aspired to universal values. Perhaps it is finally in a position to have them.

Rashid Rana at Musée Guimet - Perpetual Paradoxe - 7 July – 15 November 2010

Musée Guimet Exhibitions Contemporary Art Rashid Rana - Perpetual Paradox

7 July – 15 November 2010

The Musée Guimet presents the exhibition « Perpetual Paradox » and exhibits for the first time in France the contemporary creations of Rashid Rana, considered to be Pakistan’s greatest contemporary artist because of his digital photomontages, sculptures and video installations.
Roughly twenty of his disconcertingly paradoxical pieces will be scattered among the museum’s permanent collection, offering a unique opportunity to compare contemporary art with the Musée Guimet’s age-old Asian pieces, thus placing a question mark above tradition and the “illusion of permanence”, from the depths of time to the modern age.

With this daring, new exhibition, the Musée Guimet steps into the realm of contemporary art. Jacques Giès, President of the Musée Guimet, justifies this new approach: “The museum is much more than a safety-deposit box for antiques. In view of the value of the Asian dynamic in our modern-day world – where Asian cultures are for the first time in Western history making a place for themselves that grows larger every day- the time has come, we believe, to reflect on and reconsider our notion of the museum.”

Originally a painter, well-known in the public eye in Pakistan and several other Middle-Eastern and European countries, Rashid Rana has for the last ten years chosen to work on digital imaging, allowing him to associate opposing elements in the same piece by inlaying micro-photographic details and creating pixellated images. By associating the seen with the unseen, the artist highlights the hostility between cultures, holding responsible those who create today’s images and therefore play a role in the construction of tomorrow’s traditions … “In this age of uncertainty we have lost the privilege of having one world view. Now every image, idea and truth encompasses its opposite within itself.” –Rashid Rana.

The exhibition “Perpetual Paradox” appears hand-in-hand with the current exhibition, “Pakistan: Where Civilisations Meet. Art from the Gandhara, 1st-6th centuries AD” which runs until 16 August, and offers a unique opportunity to discover 200 Greco-Buddhist pieces characteristic of the Gandhara, mixing classic Greek and Indian art in a fusion of genres and styles.

These two exhibitions dedicated to Pakistan provide a one-off chance to experience ancient heritage alongside contemporary creations.

Note: This exhibition contains images that may offend sensitive viewers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Curators:
Musée Guimet:
Jacques Giès, President of the Musée Guimet
Caroline Arhuero, Documentary Researcher

Guest Curators:
A§E
Arianne Levene
Églantine de Ganay
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Charles Saatchi donates gallery to the nation

Source: telegraph.co.uk






The Saatchi Gallery in The Duke of York's Headquarters, Chelsea Photo: CLARA MOLDEN

"Saatchi's collection includes a number of very important works of art from contemporary Pakistani artists like Rashid Rana, Shezad Dawood and "

Art collector Charles Saatchi is gifting more than 200 works and his Saatchi Gallery to the nation, he has announced.

The Saatchi Gallery in The Duke of York's Headquarters, Chelsea Photo: CLARA MOLDEN The works, by artists including Tracey Emin, Jake & Dinos Chapman and Grayson Perry, are worth more than £25 million.

The Saatchi Gallery in London's Chelsea will become the Museum of Contemporary Art, London (Moca London).

The works will be donated to the Moca London foundation and the Saatchi Gallery is in discussions with potential Government departments, which would own the works on behalf of the nation.

The permanent collection that Saatchi is gifting includes the Richard Wilson Oil Room installation, and Emin's signature work My Bed.

The Chapman Brothers' work Tragic Anatomies, with mutated mannequins frolicking in a garden setting, last seen in the Sensation exhibition, will be another major holding.

Also included is the recent installation by Emily Prince, which filled a gallery room with more than 5,000 drawings of dead US servicemen and women from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, which she continues to build upon with the death of each soldier.

Another recently-seen work is from the Saatchi Gallery's Indian show, with a wall of bones forming the text of a speech by Gandhi, by Indian artist Jitish Kallat.

From the gallery's 2009 survey of Middle Eastern artists, the Kader Attia room of hundreds of life-sized praying figures made from aluminium foil will also form part of the museum's permanent collection.

The disturbing work Chinese Offspring by Zhang Dali, with life-size naked figures strung up by their feet from the rafters, will also be included.

The museum will be free to display artworks at all times, but when they are not being exhibited, the Government body may lend the works to other institutions.

A statement issued on the collector's behalf said: "Saatchi's view is that it is vital for the museum always to be able to display a 'living' and evolving collection of work, rather than an archive of art history."

Alongside a permanent collection, the gift will include several works which the museum may trade, using the cash raised to acquire new works.

New acquisitions will be added to the foundation's holdings to enable the museum to remain involved in spearheading the "newest developments in contemporary art".

This would continue in the traditions followed by the Saatchi Gallery since it began presenting public exhibitions a quarter of a century ago.

The London gallery sat in first place out of the UK attractions in a recent league table of global exhibition and museum attendance figures carried out by the Art Newspaper.

The Saatchi Gallery's exhibition The Revolution Continues: New Art from China, which opened in October 2008, drew more than 4,100 daily visitors.

The statement said the Saatchi Gallery's management team will ensure that the museum will continue to be free to the public, and run as it is today by securing sponsorship, and by using revenues from its facilities and hosting events.

Pakistan at Hong Kong Art Fair 2010

Pakistan is well respresented at the Hong Kong Art Fair 2010 - ArtHK10 with Gandhara art and Green Cardomam representing Pakistan Galleries. Artists represented are Aisha Khalid, Imran Qureshi, Bani Abidi, Faiza Butt, Imran Mudassar, Attiya Shaukat, Hamra Abbas; amongst others.

Shazia Sikander is also represented in the Fair by a London based gallery.

Gandhara-art at ArtHK10

Gandhara-art at ArtHK10 - facebook photos

Green Cardamom at ArtHK10 - facebook photos

Imran Qureshi - Side By Side short film

by Raking Leaves

This short film was made to accompany the release of the Raking Leaves artist’s book project Side by Side, by the artist Imran Qureshi. It is intended to complement the books by exploring their meaning through the form of a fictional documentary.

In the film, children are introduced by the artist to the two books brought together in Side by Side, a concertina dot-to-dot book and a collection of watercolour portraits, produced in the traditional Mughal style of miniature painting. Later, the students work in small groups to complete the dot-to-dot exercise in the first book, The True Path, and afterwards design similar concertina-style books of their own. In the spirit of the project, the children’s participation was embraced as part of the art-process, a fulfilment of the notion explored through the course of The True Path of learning again, like a child, how to choose our life’s path, its shape, while acknowledging the restriction of directive, latent in the trail of dots, that precludes our freedom – that is, the information and opportunity available to us.

A warm thanks is extended to the teachers and the students of the Millbank Primary School who participated in the production of this short film, whose help and generous support made this project possible.

Close-Up: Pakistan's truck art

Close-Up: Pakistan's truck art - Great four minutes video clip

BBC News series focuses on aspects of life in countries and cities around the world. What may seem ordinary and familiar to the people who live there can be surprising to those who do not.

The tradition of painting trucks in Pakistan is long and colourful.

It started out as a way for truck drivers to take reminders of home with them on long journeys, and over the years drivers have used everything from wood, metal, jangling chains, shiny objects and even 3D creations to decorate their trucks.

Pakistan correspondent Aleem Maqbool soon discovered the more elaborate and vibrant the better.

Pakistan – Where civilizations meet – 1st - 6th centuries - Gandharan arts

Musée Guimet Exhibitions Current exhibition Pakistan – Where civilizations meet – 1st - 6th centuries - Gandharan arts

21 April -16 August

Exhibition organised by the Guimet museum of Asian arts and the National Art and Exhibition Centre of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn.
The Paris exhibition commissioned by Pierre Cambon, head curator of the Guimet museum, replicates, in a modified form, the exhibition designed by Professor Michel Jansen and Doctor Christian Luczanits, presented under the name Gandhara. The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan Legends, monasteries, and Paradise

The Gandhara is a former kingdom with a Hellenistic influence which spanned the North West provinces of today’s Pakistan. This civilisation contemporaneous with the Romans in the west and the Chinese Hans in the east, peaked between the 1st and 3rd century AD, in the era of the successors of Alexander the Great and the Kushan Empire.

A land of encounters, a land of Buddhism, invasions and exchanges, but also a land of ancient culture and diversities, Gandhara witnessed the birth and development of a brilliant civilisation combining Greek influences, resulting from the conquests of Alexander the Great, and Persian and Indian inspirations.

In this exhibition, statuettes or statues of Buddha and revered deities (bodhisattva, etc.), low reliefs of temples and stupas, will appear alongside terracotta and stucco items from monasteries or palaces.

Gandharan art bridges the gap between continents, between western and eastern cultures, offering a multiplicity of artistic forms which invite us to discover a world where beauty and humanity prevail.

AMNA NAQVI OF GANDHARA-ART, KARACHI AND HONG KONG, DISCUSSES WHAT TO EXPECT AT ART DUBAI 2010

AMNA NAQVI OF GANDHARA-ART, KARACHI AND HONG KONG, DISCUSSES WHAT TO EXPECT AT ART DUBAI 2010

Aisha Khalid, Divided, 2009, Gouache on Paper (36 X 24 inches each) X 3(Triptych)

Gandhara-art is a curatorial and art publishing organisation, based in Hong Kong, engaged in showcasing the work of Pakistan's pioneering Modern artists, as well as the Contemporary Art of Pakistan's next generation. Gandhara runs its gallery program in Karachi as well as Hong Kong and also works on collaborative projects with art institutions and runs an active art-publishing program. Gandhara–art will be exhibiting Pakistani Contemporary Art as well the work of one of Pakistan's modern artists.

Gandhara-art's contemporary focus will be on showcasing the works of the pioneers of the neo-contemporary miniature painting including Imran Qureshi & Aisha Khalid. Their work is instrumental in the contemporary resurrection of this traditional art form. Their oeuvre is all encompassing. It include paintings, sculptures as well as large scale installations which are exhibited in galleries, museums, art fairs and biennales in Europe, Asia, the UK and the US and was most recently shown at at the East-West Divan at the Venice Biennale (2009).


Gandhara-art also be showcasing the work of Faiza Butt, a UK based Pakistani artist, whose paintings are beautifully rendered and engage the viewer with their ironic dialogue. Butt also exhibits widely internationally and her work was just recently shown in Hanging Fire at the Asia Society Museum in New York (2009).

Imran Qureshi, Story of two, 2009, Gouache & Gold Leaf on Wasli, 21cm X 30cm

Along with these stalwarts of Pakistani Contemporary Art, Gandhara-art will also be showcasing the work of younger artists such as Attiya Shaukat whose paintings has been compared to those of Freida Kahlo for their powerful imagery. Shaukat has also been shown internationally and her work is currently being shown at the Devi Art Foundation - an exhibition of Pakistani Contemporary Art (2010), which was curated by contemporary artist, Rashid Rana.

Gandhara-art will also be showing the work of one of the icons of the Pakistani Modern Art. Ismail Gulgee, lived large on the landscape of post-independence Pakistani Art. His forte was abstract expressionism, but he differed from his pioneering American counterparts as this art form was not limited to abstraction for him. He introduced Islamic Calligraphy and the gestural flow of this calligraphy has resulted in some uniquely powerful works.

The work of these artists is unique in its painstaking skill as well as its metaphors, which are the manifestation of their social, political, religious and national identities.

Art Sales: will Saatchi's investment in Indian art pay off?

A new show of contemporary Indian art at the Saatchi Gallery has sparked hopful talk that the market's fortunes will be revived.

By Colin Gleadell

Charles Saatchi bought this untitled painting by India's most highly rated young artist, Subodh Gupta, for a triple estimate $646,000

In the build-up to the Saatchi Gallery's new exhibition, The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today, which opens on Friday, there has been much hopeful talk about how it will revive the fortunes of the market for contemporary Indian art.

This is a market that, for a select band of artists, saw one of the most dramatic rises of all during the art boom of 2006 to 2008. According to ArtTactic, a company that monitors the progress of emerging markets, average prices for contemporary Indian art at auction rose by 140 per cent between March 2006 and September 2008. But between September 2008 and September 2009, they fell by 75 per cent.

While the older generations of modern artists held the fort, demand for younger contemporary artists – a generation on which Saatchi has focused – spiralled downwards. In New York, consignments for sale were so thin last year that Sotheby's combined modern and contemporary Indian art with South-East Asian antiquities and miniatures to boost their catalogues. Global sales of modern and contemporary Indian art at Christie's rose from $650,000 (£403,000) in 2000 to $45 million in 2008, but fell back to approximately $12.5 million last year.

So what has been the effect on Saatchi's investment? For one thing, this is a collection that was largely formed two years ago – just before the boom peaked, but without the advantage of buying in a downturn. It is unlikely that the top prices paid at auction would be recovered at this moment. Atul Dodiya's decorative painting Woman of Kabul (2001) cost $156,000 when it was bought in May 2008 – not a record, but above the high estimate. However, since September 2008, hardly any of the more expensive works by Dodiya offered at auction have sold.

In the same sale, Saatchi bought a painting of kitchen pots by India's most highly rated young artist, Subodh Gupta, for a triple estimate and record $646,000. In the months that followed, several Gupta paintings and sculptures broke the $1 million mark at auction. Sellers looking to cash in during the autumn of 2008, though, were disappointed when the majority of his works at auction went unsold.

In contrast, where he bought new work direct from galleries in the early stages of boom, and was able to negotiate prices, Saatchi appears to be in profit. In 2007, for instance, he bought a set of three photographic collages by Pakistani artist Rashid Rana. Made up of tiny pornographic photographs, the collages were arranged to look from a distance like a veil, a symbol of modesty. The price for the set, direct from Rana's gallery, was about $20,000. In June last year, in spite of recessionary conditions, another example from the edition of 20 sold for £61,000 at Sotheby's.

Gupta's bronze sculpture UFO was bought in 2007 from the Bodhi Gallery for about $160,000, but would be priced at double that amount since the artist signed up with international heavyweight dealers Hauser & Wirth.

Then there is T V Santhosh, whose paintings Saatchi again purchased direct from the artist's gallery in 2007. Costing about £32,000 each, similar works became the subject of intense speculation, rising to 10 times that amount at auction during the next 18 months. But, like so much contemporary Indian art, prices then crashed down to earth.

However, Saatchi would still probably double his money if he sold those paintings at auction now, says Conor Macklin, a director of the Grosvenor Vadehra Gallery, which works with Santhosh.

For a less established artist, such as Huma Mulji, whose taxidermy camel in a trunk, Arabian Delight, was bought at the Dubai Art Fair two years ago for $8,000, the exhibition itself will probably be the main spur to stardom, and its timing could be propitious. ArtTactic measures the confidence its subscribers have in the future of particular markets, and says that its confidence indicator for modern and contemporary Indian art, which had reached a high of 82 points in October 2007, fell to its lowest point of 20 in May 2009. However, its last reading, taken in November 2009, showed an uplift to 49 points.

In the interim, prices for the market leader, Subodh Gupta, have stabilised, though at slightly lower price levels, and for Atul Dodiya's next show to be held in March at
the Vadehra Gallery in New Delhi, prices have been reduced to less than $100,000 each. That show, tellingly, has already sold out.

Pakistani Art at Asia Society - NYTimes slideshow

Source: NYTimes.com

"Hanging Fire," an exhibition of new art from Pakistan, is a closely edited group show at the Asia Society drawn from a small pool of artists, many of whom attended the National College of Arts in Lahore.

Click title to see slide show.

Hanging Fire - Pakistan Exhibition at Asia Society, New York

Moderate Enlightenment, 2007 - Gouache on wasli. Aicon Gallery, New York
Source: Asia Society


September 10, 2009 - January 3, 2010

Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan brings to New York some of Pakistan’s most significant, provocative, and influential artists in the first U.S. museum survey exhibition of contemporary Pakistani art. Although Pakistan frequently makes the headlines for very different reasons, its rich cultural heritage and vibrant contemporary art scene often go unnoticed. Pakistani civil society has a history of dissent and activism, which has often informed its art movements, its poetry, and its music.

A Muslim-majority state, Pakistan was carved out of the Indian subcontinent after gaining independence from the British in 1947. Although from its inception, Pakistan’s history has been turbulent—including civil war, military coups, sectarian and ethnic strife, and other insurgencies—a resilient population has been enterprising, productive, and innovative. Art schools and art institutions in Pakistan are producing artists, educators, curators, and collectors, who are having an increasing impact in the art world and the media. Art practices vary widely, a reflection of the numerous visual legacies to which Pakistan is heir, including archeological finds from the Paleolithic era to the ancient Indus Valley civilization and Persian, Arab, Central Asian, and British colonial influences.

Contemporary artists sift through these many layers, which mingle with lively rural, urban, and regional cultures and contemporary issues from religious fundamentalism to urbanization and much more. In spite of apparent constraints, there is no evidence of alienation or submissiveness. Instead, the artists and artworks in Hanging Fire celebrate the opportunity for dialogue and display a preference for irony and humorous, mutinous thought.

Venice Biennale 2009 - East-West Divan Artists from Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan

Source: Nafas Art Magazine

He who knows himself and others
Here will also see,
That the East and West, like brothers,
Parted ne'er shall be.

Thoughtfully to float for ever
'Tween two worlds, be man's endeavour!
So between the East and West
To revolve, be my behest!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
West-Östlicher Divan (1819)


Turquoise Mountain presents East-West Divan: Contemporary Art from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan during the 53rd International Art Exhibition of the Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition includes recent works by ten artists from three countries, better known in the West for stereotypes of terrorism and Islamic extremism than for their rich artistic heritage and vibrant contemporary cultures.

East-West Divan challenges these negative perceptions with works by both emerging and established artists, who are engaged in an ongoing dialogue between the artistic traditions of East and West. Nowhere is this dialogue more present than in the grand architecture and decorative traditions of Venice, whose lucrative trade routes with the East produced some of the most spectacular fusions of Eastern and Western art and architecture.

East-West Divan meditates upon the links between the artistic traditions of Venice and the Persian artistic heritage shared by all three countries in this exhibition. The exhibition includes new works of art responding to traditions such as miniature painting, calligraphy and Islamic geometric design, revealing how contemporary artists, far from being overburdened by an ‘anxiety of influence’ from their rich cultural past, have found new ways to challenge and transform this cultural inheritance.

Playing with a broad range of references which bring together Pop art and Shi’ite shrines, modernist abstraction and Islamic architecture, the exhibition reflects on how culture and history can co-exist with today’s globalised, melting pot society. The title of the exhibition is taken from a collection of poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, inspired by the Persian poet Hafez, and refers to the ‘divan’ or council chamber, as a physical symbol of the coming together of different cultures.

East-West Divan presents a subtle and complex meditation upon the realities and perceptions of contemporary life, history and politics in the Middle East, South and Central Asia, unraveling – just a little - the tightly knotted relationship between East and West.

Kaleidoscope of views

Source: Gulf News

Eleven artists raise crucial contemporary issues, cataloguing Pakistan's changing perspectives

By Jyoti Kalsi, Special to Weekend Review
Published: 00:29 March 14, 2008


A special highlight of Art Dubai this year is an exhibition of contemporary Pakistani art titled Desperately Seeking Paradise.

Curated by Salima Hashemi, a well-known artist and dean of the School of Visual Arts in Lahore, the Pakistan Pavilion will feature paintings, sculptures and art installations by 11 artists from Pakistan.

“It is a great honour to have a pavilion dedicated to art from Pakistan at Art Dubai. Art fairs are largely commercial events driven by galleries.

"So it is wonderful that our artists have this opportunity to speak out and communicate directly with the viewers.

"As the curator, I have tried to look for artists who speak about issues related to Pakistan to a Pakistani audience.

"They do not have an eye on the West, and yet their work is seen in the West,'' Hashemi said.

The title she has chosen for the exhibition is inspired by the title of a book by Pakistan-born British philosopher Ziaudin Sardar.

“The book is an ironic and profound investigation into the travels of a Muslim sceptic.

"It is about making sense of the millions of questions that arise in the minds of those living in traditional societies, and the struggle to stay true to your beliefs and desires in a changing world.

"I felt Desperately Seeking Paradise would be a suitable title for this exhibition because we hope to represent parallel and iconoclastic passions engaging Pakistani artists today.

"Resurfacing from the suffocation of dictatorial rule, this generation of artists is probing taboos and rejecting canons with verve and wit.

"And as the title suggests, their work expresses a search for some sort of equilibrium,'' Hashemi said.

“Dubai as a location for Desperately Seeking Paradise seems particularly apt because the city is seeking to be an alternative destination for so many quests — economic, cultural, social and political.

"But beneath the surface, there lurks a subtext which preoccupies the Muslim world. Do we hope to circumscribe our contentious cultures, explore our inconsistencies and our disparate voices to eventually arrive at a common intersection — enriched, tolerant and humane? Or is this about a never-ending mirage?'' she asks.

The “Paradise'' that engages the artists selected for this exhibition is multilayered and brimming with promise. The artworks are diverse, presenting different ideas and perspectives in a variety of media and styles.

They range from Farida Batool's lenticular graphics to Rashid Rana's digital art that makes the viewer a part of the work through mirrors and metallic surfaces embedded within.

From Imran Quereshi's contemporary version of Mogul miniatures to Anwar Saeed's enigmatic blend of Christian, Hindu and Buddhist iconography.

Pakistani artists who have lived abroad bring their own special viewpoint.

Faiza Butt, who shuttles between London and Lahore, comments on modern society through paintings of her children playing with guns, while Ali Raza, who has recently returned to Pakistan from the US, confronts the militarisation of society and demands change through his painting of gun-toting combatants in fatigues travelling alongside ordinary people.

Mohammad Ali Talpur takes a more meditative approach through his giant Perspex cube crisscrossed by lines on its surface.

Huma Mulji and Naiza Khan look at wider contemporary issues through their thought-provoking installations.

Mulji, a sculptor and a photographer, makes a strong and witty protest against racial profiling and the humiliation suffered at airports by Muslims through a stuffed camel carcass squeezed into a suitcase.

Khan's installation consists of a boat floating in the lake beside the Madinat Arena.

Inside the boat are sculptures of several headless female torsos dressed in body armour. Another set of torsos stand on the edge of the water.

The work powerfully expresses the constraints on women and their tremendous desire to break free.

“The boat has been specially made by fishermen in Karachi and represents a dying art in this era of motorboats.

"It was a big challenge for us to transport this boat and Huma's stuffed camel all the way to Dubai,'' Hashemi said.

Dutch artist Sophie Ernst is an interesting inclusion in this exhibition.

“Sophie uses video to explore themes of belonging, displacement and cultural relativity in her work.

"Her video of interviews with young Pakistani men chasing the American dream fits well into our theme of ‘desperately seeking paradise','' Hashemi said.

“Sophie has been teaching art in Pakistan for the past five years and her work has been exhibited in Europe, India and Pakistan.

"She represents a bridge between different cultures and provides an important third voice to this exhibition.''

But, perhaps the most striking work and the one that truly embodies the vitality, freshness and innovative spirit of Pakistani art and this exhibition is Durriya Qazi's clay sculpture, Witness.

Dedicated to all humankind, this sculpture of two inert bodies, perhaps of innocent victims of war, lying in the bushes expresses the sad truth that throughout human history, there have been very few years of peace.

In a profound statement, the sculpture installed outdoors will gradually disintegrate into a pile of dust as nature takes its course.

“I want visitors from around the world to feel the artists' energy and their strength in the face of difficult circumstances.

"I hope the exhibits will surprise, amuse, challenge and provoke viewers. I wish the Pakistani community in the UAE comes in large numbers to the exhibition.

"I hope the artworks make Pakistanis here change their image of themselves and their country,'' Hashemi said.

“Pakistani art is now being noticed in the global art world. This exhibition will take it one step further,'' she added.

Art Dubai will be on from March 19 to March 22.
Jyoti Kalsi is a UAE-based art enthusiast.

Shahzia Sikander in conversation with Glenn Lowry

Source: Cooper Hewitt

A conversation with internationally acclaimed artist Shahzia Sikander and art historian and MoMA Director, Glenn Lowry.

Shahzia Sikanders work takes apart the conventional methods of addressing traditional miniature paintings and reassembles them to expand their associations, inserting new dialogues often subversive in nature. Using wit, irony and paradox, Sikanders inventiveness draws upon literary, pop, media and art historical contexts. Her work ranges from intimate watercolors, large scale wall installations and digital animation and video. Sikander studied at both the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan and the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence.

Glenn Lowry is an art historian and current Director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). A noted scholar of Islamic arts and architecture, Lowry was previously Curator of Near Eastern Art at the Smithsonian Institutions Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art (1984-90) where he organized, among other exhibitions, Timur and Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century (1989) and A Jewelers Eye: Islamic Arts of the Book From the Vever Collection (1988).

 

Acts of Balance - Shahzia Sikander - Whitney Mueum - Archive - April, 2000

Source: NYT 

Picking out of archive, older exhibition of Shahzia Sikander - Acts of Balance - with her mural - 'Chaman'

ART/ARCHITECTURE; A Painter of Miniatures on a Maximum Scale

By Barry Schwabsky

May 14, 2000

IT was afternoon on April 20, and that evening would be the opening of Shahzia Sikander's exhibition ''Acts of Balance'' at the Whitney Museum's gallery in the Philip Morris Building on East 42nd Street. By this time, most artists would have been focusing on what they were going to wear, but Ms. Sikander was still there in paint-spattered jeans and a Mona Lisa T-shirt, continuing to work on the art.

''I'm always changing things,'' said Ms. Sikander, stepping into a hydraulic lift that would carry her aloft to work on a triptych showing female acrobats, which had been hung on a wall overlooking the lobby where office workers were eating lunch. ''When paintings come back after a show, I work on them. I'm always putting things in and editing things out, putting things in and editing things out. Nothing is done until it's wrecked.''

That's not what you would expect from an artist whose first training was in the stylized, highly controlled art of Islamic miniatures, in which high finish, not spontaneity, is valued. But then you wouldn't expect such an artist to expand her work to mural scale either, or to mix in imagery from Hindu India and Western pop culture.

Ms. Sikander, who is 31, seems to have been a contrarian at least from the day she set foot in the National College of Arts in her hometown, Lahore, Pakistan. While Western viewers may find the allure of the exotic in her use of the imagery and techniques of the miniature, at home her desire to be trained in the tradition puzzled her teachers and fellow students, who saw it as something that would only impede her creativity. But her work is hardly about adhering to a closed heritage. Instead, it seems to invite previously unrelated pictorial strains to intermingle with humor, irony and often eroticism.

''Even when miniatures were at their height, their aesthetics were incredibly diverse,'' she says. ''Hybridity isn't a new thing.''

After finishing her course in Lahore, Ms. Sikander went on to graduate school at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence and then to a fellowship at the Glassell School of Art in Houston. She first burst onto the New York scene in 1997, with her work appearing in rapid succession in a group show at the Drawing Center, in the Whitney Biennial and in a one-person gallery show at Deitch Projects in SoHo. It says something about the shifting nature of provincialism that while few people were surprised by the sudden rise of a young artist from Pakistan, the fact that she lived in Houston really did seem mysterious. Because her still-undecided immigration status is being handled in Houston, she maintains a studio there as well as one in New York.

Visitors entering the enclosed gallery space where the main part of ''Acts of Balance'' is installed (through July 7) can be forgiven for wondering whether Ms. Sikander's process of adding and subtracting visual elements is still going on. Three walls have been painted with landscape and architectural elements and other images derived from the triptych hanging outside, turning the tall, boxy gallery into a sumptuous imaginary garden. The murals were then partly covered with translucent sheets of yellow tissue paper that have been pinned to the surface here and there. Some of the sheets have also been painted with figures and decorative patterns done in a loose, spontaneous hand. But most of them are just blank, screening the underlying image rather than replacing it.

Asked why she was trimming slivers off the blank yellow sheets -- in a work of this scale, the difference would hardly be noticeable -- Ms. Sikander laughed and said, ''Well, I like to cut hair.'' Everything seems movable, provisional, unfinished. The way ''Acts of Balance'' plays hide and seek with its imagery cannot help recalling Jackson Pollock's remark that he hadn't eliminated imagery from his paintings but simply ''veiled'' it.

Pollock's word rings bells today, when a number of young female artists from the Islamic world have come to prominence on the American art scene. In addition to Ms. Sikander, there are the Egyptian-born, French-educated Ghada Amer and the Iranian-born Shirin Neshat, both of whose work is currently featured in the Whitney Biennial as well as in the ''Greater New York'' survey at P. S. 1 in Queens.

In Ms. Sikander's work, as in that of Ms. Neshat, the veil has sometimes been a powerful symbol, but it has also been an inherently ambiguous one. Sometimes viewers have wanted to find more polemics in the image than the artist intended. When a veiled woman appears in a miniature, Ms. Sikander points out, it isn't a commentary on the veil, and the same can be true of her work when it takes images from the history of miniatures. ''But the reaction to this imagery can get simplified here, and that's something I'm trying to deal with,'' she says. As result, she is trying to focus her work on ''becoming less figurative -- looking formally at miniatures rather than at their narratives.''

''A lot of the vocabulary in 'Acts of Balance' comes from the stylization, the palette, the forms in miniatures,'' she continues. ''So the veiled woman isn't there.'' And yet in a more abstract way, the veiled woman remains the central image in ''Acts of Balance.'' Right in the middle of the central wall, facing each viewer walking into the gallery -- though not the first thing one notices in this strange melange of multiplicity and emptiness -- are the eyes of a woman who gazes out serenely, but also questioningly and challengingly, from behind a metaphoric veil of yellow tissue paper.

The viewer who notices the centrality of this image may come to feel that the art is seeing, studying, questioning him or her rather than vice versa. ''Acts of Balance'' is full of autobiographical references, right down to the images of cowboy boots, a wry reference to Ms. Sikander's current half-willing residence in Texas. But the most self-referential image of all may be this: a clear-eyed young woman at the confluence of many cultures, all in transition.