Shahzia Sikander is an artist deeply interested in exploring the stories missing from our galleries and museums.
“For me, the function of art is to allow multiple meanings and possibilities, and to open a space for a more just world,” the Pakistani-born, New York-based artist told ArtForum last year.
“Representing women as active agents in traditionally patriarchal spaces, especially spaces related to delivering justice and adjudicating power, seems necessary in contemporary civic life.”
NOW, 2023 patinated bronze 97 1/2 x 49 x 49 inches (247.7 x 124.5 x 124.5 cm) edition of 7 with 2 APs (#3/7) (ShS-S.23.122.3). Courtesy Sean Kelly gallery.
In 2024, Sikander’s artful civic-life lessons formed part of the Venice Biennale, with a major retrospective, entitled Collective Behavior, staged at the Palazzo Van Axel in the city. This six-month-long show displayed a wide variety of Sikander’s sculptures, installations and animations on view – some drawn from the archive, some made for the event – as well as plenty of her contemporary takes on traditional Indo-Persian miniature painting.
This year the Venice show jumps the Atlantic, and will transfer to two complementary shows in Ohio, one staged at the Cleveland Museum of Art, from February 14 to June 8, 2025, and the other at Cincinnati Art Museum, from February 14 to May 4, 2025.
In the Cleveland iteration of the show, Sikander’s deeply beautiful, considered works will be placed in dialogue with pieces from the museum’s esteemed South Asian collections. Meanwhile, the Cincinnati show will host a lecture from the artist, on Sunday, April 27, 2025, between 2–3 p.m.
The World is Yours, the World is Mine, 2014 gouache and ink on hand-prepared paper 23 11/16 x 20 9/16 inches (60.2 x 52.3 cm) Courtesy Sean Kelly gallery.
The exhibitions are important grounding events for a brilliant, mid-career artist, whose work disrupts conventional views of race and gender. Born in Lahore and coming of age during the Pakistani military dictatorship of the 1980s, Sikander graduated with a BFA from Pakistan’s National College of Arts in 1991, training under the master miniaturist Bashir Ahmad, before going on to take her MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Monacelli will also publish the definitive monograph on Sikander's work in February. Collective Behaviour is the first comprehensive exploration of Sikander’s ideas and art. With hundreds of images, many presented as a full page or an entire spread, the richly illustrated book immerses readers in Sikander’s vibrant, subversive art. Writers and contributors to the book include: Ainsley M. Cameron and Emily Liebert, with Manan Ahmed, Aruna D’Souza, Bhanu Kapil, Rosalind C. Morris, Fred Moten, and Victoria Sung.
A recipient of the Inaugural Medal of Art in 2012, and a MacArthur Foundation Achievement ‘Genius’ award, her work is now held in the permanent collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art; the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, among many others institutions.
The Perennial Gaze, 2018 glass mosaic mounted on plywood in brass frame 70 1/4 x 43 1/4 inches (178.4 x 109.9 cm) the work is accompanied by a signed certificate of authenticity ShS-S.18.041. Courtesy Sean Kelly gallery.
New Yorkers may recall Sikander’s fantastical five-and-a-half-meter tall bronze sculpture, Witness, which was installed near the Courthouse of the Appellate Division, First Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, in Madison Square Park in 2023.
The work, which featured a female figure with ram's horn-like braids and a hoop skirt with calligraphic mosaic details, was vandalized after transferring to the campus of the University of Texas, shortly after the anti-abortion Christian group, Texas Right to Life, dubbed the piece ‘satanic’.
SHAHZIA SIKANDER - Maligned Monsters II
Sikander chose not to repair the sculpture – which was decapitated – but instead let it stand as what she called “a testament to the hatred and division that permeate our society.”
It was a bold move from an artist who prefers to open up artistic possibilities rather than close down debate.
“I aspire for multivalence,” she explained to ArtForum. “I aim to create something wondrous that inspires many possible associations, invites profound reflection, and generates difference.”
Singing Suns, 2016 HD video animation with sound; Music by Du Yun; Animation by Patrick O’Rourke duration: 3 minutes 24 seconds ShS-V.16.002. Courtesy Sean Kelly gallery.
Experience those reflections for yourself, either by heading to Ohio this spring, or by buying one of her prints, currently available on Artspace.com. And look out for a new and very special Artspace edition with the artist in the coming months. And remember to check out the Monacelli book, Collective Behavior, here.