Critical Writing Index

Shahzia Sikander at Brent Sikkema - Pakistani-American artist exhibtion, New York

by Daniel Belasco

Art in America, June 2003, v. 91, no. 6

This article originally featured in Art in America and is now available online. It discusses Pakistani-born, American artist Shahzia Sikander's exhibition at the Brent Sikkema Gallery in New York. She is best known for her traditional Indo-Persian miniature painting techniques which she learnt in Lahore, Pakistan. This show comprises of a pair of digitally animated drawings and over two dozen works on paper exploring issues of hybridity and nationalism. Sikander also probes the fateful ruptures of translation and undermines the tired terminology of East and West. Shahzia Sikander has also experimented with video art and exhbitied an animated video projection at the Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Centre. She experiments with animated montage of digital reproductions of her previous work. Silently fading into each other, the pictures create layers of Sikander's visual vocabulary. Decorative surfaces dissolve into figure studies of a dancer; transparent paper morphs into detailed drawings of architectural details.

ITEM 2003.080 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

SpiNNShahzia Sikander

Pink PavillionShahzia Sikander

No Fly ZoneShahzia Sikander