I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is one of the world’s most renowned artists, Shahzia Sikander.
Working across painting, sculpture, drawing, and animation, the Lahore-born, New York-based Sikander is widely celebrated for her work that subverts tradition and reclaims narratives – such as her subverting of Central and South-Asian manuscript painting and launching the form known today as neo-miniature.
A holder of a B.F.A. in 1991 from the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, it was Sikander’s breakthrough work, The Scroll, 1989–90, that received national critical acclaim in Pakistan and brought international recognition to the medium in contemporary art practices in the 1990s.
Life then took her to the US, where she received, in 1995, her M.F.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design. Over the subsequent twenty plus years, Sikander’s practice – which has expanded into multiple mediums – has been pivotal in showcasing art of the South Asian diaspora as a contemporary American tradition.
Solo exhibitions include at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in Texas; the Morgan Library and Museum in New York; accolades include the Pollock Prize for Creativity, a medal of Art by the U.S. Department of State, and a MacArthur Fellowship; she is in the collections of all major national and international museums, and she is currently an adjunct professor for Fall of 2024 at Columbia University,
Sikander's major outdoor project, NOW, an 8-foot bronze female sculpture, is permanently installed on the roof of the Appellate Courthouse in Manhattan. An accompanying 18-foot female sculpture, Witness, was exhibited in Madison Square Park in 2023, which then travelled to Houston – something we will get into later on in this episode.
Her interdisciplinary practice, that has focussed on hybridised female figures that references goddesses from all different global perspectives, offers a perspective that breaks down all borders, disrupts assumptions around art historical boundaries. It is groundbreaking, trailblazing – and I can’t wait to find out more.
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Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic
Music by Ben Wetherfield