Published to coincide with a major mid-career retrospective that premiered during the Biennale Art in Venice and will be held concurrently at the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art, this richly illustrated volume is the first comprehensive exploration of Sikander’s ideas and work and immerses readers in Sikander’s vibrant and subversive art.
Produced in a limited edition of 40, each print is accompanied by a copy of Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior, the definitive and richly illustrated monograph on the artist, published by Monacelli. This limited edition print and comprehensive volume coincide with Sikander’s solo exhibitions at the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art, both opening on February 14th. This release closely follows the premiere of the artist’s major survey exhibition, Collective Behavior, at La Biennale di Venezia in 2024.
This course thinks across the arts with the remarkable artist Shahzia Sikander. Over three decades, Sikander has produced compelling objects that practically and theoretically transcend borders and probe contested histories. Sikander is internationally renowned for a pioneering, multi-media practice that takes classical Indo-Persian miniature painting as its point of departure, and inflects it with contemporary South Asian, American, Feminist, and Muslim perspectives. Sikander’s work stands in opposition to the idea of homogenous and authentic national cultures; instead, Sikander asks that we understand terms such as “tradition,” “culture” and “identity” as unstable, abstract, and constantly evolving. This course considers different aspects of Sikander’s practice, from her training in Indo-Persian painting to her work with poets, dancers, and composers. We’ll engage closely with South Asian paintings, and a range of texts, including works by Aruna D’Souza, Gayatri Gopinath, and Saidiya Hartman.
Join Sikander as she discusses her artistic practice as well as recent and ongoing projects, including NOW, an eight-foot bronze female sculpture installed on the roof of the Manhattan Appellate Courthouse; Reckoning, an animation that unfolded across the screens of Times Square every midnight in September 2023; and a survey exhibition of her work organized by the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art, opening at the Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel in Venice in April 2024.
This lecture is made possible by the Fran and Warren Rupp Contemporary Artist Fund.
Art at Amtrak, the official public art program of Amtrak, presents diverse, unique and memorable art projects to enhance, invigorate and humanize the travel experience at Amtrak stations. The art program reflects and celebrates each region's creative preeminence by featuring contemporary artists through rotating exhibitions.
The program launched at New York Penn Station in June 2022, has expanded to Moynihan Train Hall in Summer 2023, to Washington Union Station and William H. Gray III 30th Street Station in Fall 2023.
Art at Amtrak is curated and produced by Debra Simon Art Consulting.
Sean Kelly Gallery is delighted to announce Shahzia Sikander's major permanent public art installation, Metaxu, one of four site-specific art installations in the new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center. Sikander's work joins installations by Sandra Cinto, Sam Gilliam, and Elias Sime, each chosen to reflect the Hopkins Bloomberg Center's mission to foster discovery and the global exchange of ideas.
First realized as a painting, transformed into an animation, and would later take its final form as a large-scale glass mosaic mural, entitled Metaxu – a Greek word meaning "in-between" or "middle ground." For this installation, Sikander renders a lush garden landscape with vibrant pieces of multi-colored glass. Drawing inspiration from the Polish poet and essayist Adam Zagajewski who reinterpreted the word to describe the state of a human being who is perennially nomadic. Additionally, French philosopher Simone Weil further added to this definition, describing "metaxu" as the condition of those who pursue lifelong paths to truth and knowledge.
The 2023 Alan Kanzer Artist-in-Residence is painter Shahzia Sikander. In her role, Sikander will engage with artists and scientists in interdisciplinary pursuit to gain a deeper understanding of the mind and brain. Fostering creative pursuit in neuroscience and the arts, the Alan Kanzer Artist-in-Residence is a collaboration between Columbia's Zuckerman Institute and School of the Arts. The Alan Kanzer Artist-in-Residence program enables visual artists opportunities to collaborate both formally and informally with scientists studying the brain, the senses, perception, learning and memory, and promotes engagement across the Institute and the surrounding community. She will work with a faculty host to define and achieve concrete outcomes, such as works of art that benefit her creative pursuit, Institute scientists and the community-at-large. By the end of the residency, Sikander, the scientists and members of the wider community will benefit from access to new knowledge and perspectives from these cross-disciplinary activities.
Ms. Shahzia Sikander is a leading South Asian artist. She has brought new life and contemporary significance to traditional art forms by making full use of the latest digital technology in the world of miniature painting, which follows conventions dating back to the Mughal Empire. By metaphorically depicting the grave problems facing the world through contemporary forms, she has become a role model for female artists in South Asia and continues to pave the way for future younger generations to follow.
As a cautious world continues to reopen and a sense of normalcy begins to return to its art museums, a lively summer lineup of no-holds-barred exhibitions by and about queer artists is helping ensure that the imbalances exposed by the pandemic remain center stage, and that the urgency surrounding them isn’t lost. Highlighting themes such as activism, racism, ageism, ableism, innovation and intimacy, these shows help envision a future informed by past progress, but still mindful of present challenges and unafraid to keep evolving.
If it seems like forever since you visited any of Chicago’s many museums and cultural arts attractions, there’s no time like the present to check out all that the area has to offer. And with COVID-19 pandemic restrictions lifted, you can do so — in person.
So here’s a look at some of the exhibits waiting to be discovered (or rediscovered) by you, your friends, your family. The museums listed have reopened unless otherwise indicated. Most require advance tickets, so check websites for more information.
One year ago on July 4th, the skin of New York City art lovers was crawling. Sheltering in place with museums and galleries shut down, the community’s ability to see great art in person had been taken away. It was one of Covid-19’s lesser abuses, but a loss none the less to those for whom the arts are a lifeline.
One year later, the city’s museums and galleries are open, operating safely, welcoming visitors. Take advantage by channeling the art cravings of July 2020 into a full-on arts binge around New York this 4th.
Much Unseen is Also Here, an initiative of Toward Common Cause, brings together the works of two major artists who both consider the theater of the landscape, monumentality, cultural history, and representation.
Probing monuments and identity, An-My Lê and Shahzia Sikander explore history’s embeddedness in our present. Lê’s Silent General (2015 - ongoing) presents large-scale views of places and people in the contemporary American landscape, while Sikander’s uses sculpture, drawings, and animation to examine representations of intersectional femininity that is prompted by questions of who monuments historically depict.
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, Rhode Island, has appointed six new trustees: contemporary artist, designer, and activist Shepard Fairey; Gabrielle Bullock, a principal at the Los Angeles–based firm Perkins & Will and the second African American woman to graduate from the school’s architecture program; the Pakistani-born printer and printmaker Shahzia Sikander; Norman Chan, the founder and managing director of the architectural and interior design firm BTR Workshop Limited in Hong Kong; Michael Rock, the cofounder of the New York City design consultancy 2x4; and William Schweizer III, the vice chairman of clinical affairs at NYU Langone Health’s department of obstetrics and gynecology in New York City.
Shepard Fairey, Gabrielle Bullock, Shahzia Sikander, Norman Chan, Michael Rock and William Schweizer to serve as Term Trustees; Donald Choi, Deborah Mankiw named Ex Officio Trustees
PROVIDENCE, RI, - The Board of Trustees at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) is proud to announce the election of Shepard Fairey, Gabrielle Bullock, Shahzia Sikander, Norman Chan, Michael Rock and William Schweizer as its newest term trustees. Each will serve a three-year term through May 2022.
“The Board is thrilled to welcome to RISD this new group of esteemed trustees, which includes several extraordinary alumni,” said RISD Board Chair Michael Spalter . “Our newest members embody RISD’s values and they have each made indelible marks on society. We look forward to the ways they will help guide our illustrious institution alongside our visionary President Rosanne Somerson, and we thank them for taking on this important commitment in service to RISD.”