Shahzia Sikander

Since the late 1980’s, Shahzia Sikander has been instrumental in the rediscovery, re-infusion, and re-contextualization of Indo-Persian miniature painting, pioneering an experimental approach to the anachronistic genre. Her work launched a major following in Lahore at the National College of Arts in the 1990’s inspiring many others to examine the miniature tradition.
Encompassing painting; drawing; animation; installation and video, Sikander’s multi-dimensional praxis radically rearticulates the miniaturist tradition by inserting new dialogue that is often subversive and polemical in nature. Sikander’s visual vocabulary engages a multiplicity of themes including transformation as narrative, the exploration of disruption as a means to cultivate new associations, and issues concerning labour, scale and time.
Her work has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions at such national and international venues as the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Gallery of Canada, the Venice Biennale 2005, the Istanbul Biennale, 2003, MCA Sydney, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Rockbund Museum, Shanghai and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo amongst others.
Shahzia Sikander received her B.FA from the National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan and an M.F.A from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.
Sikander has been the recipient of numerous awards, grants and fellowships, including the John D. and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation Achievement award (2006-2011); The DAAD, Berlin (2007-08) the National Pride of Honor by the Pakistani Government (2005), the Joan Mitchell award (1998-99), and the Tiffany foundation award (1997).
Ms. Sikander will lead a discussion on the current exhibition Once Upon Many Times: Legends and Myths in Himalayan Art (Sept. 16, 2011 – Jan. 30, 2012).
Free
*This event will take place on the fifth floor.