Artist Shahzia Sikander’s unapologetic approach to body politics

livemint.com:

Collective Behaviour, the show spans three-and-a-half decades of her practice. The artist, who reflects on colonial histories of the subcontinent, and draws inspiration from miniature traditions and manuscripts, was in the news recently for vandalism of her work in the US. “At 3 am on July 8, a man with a hammer decapitated an 18-foot sculpture of a woman at the University of Houston.

I made this sculpture, and I called it“Witness" as an allegory of the power — or rather the lack of power — that women are accorded within the justice system. In an unexpected way, “Witness" has lived up to its name," wrote Sikander in a July-30 piece in The Washington Post. This work had been commissioned by the Madison Square Park Conservancy and the Public Art of the University of Houston System, but has since then earned the ire of right-wing and pro-life groups.

The female figure and the fractures in the world that we live in have been central to her practice, irrespective of the medium that she works in. Sikander trained in traditional miniature drawing and painting at the National College of the Arts, Lahore. However, ever since she moved to the US in the early nineties, she has explored a range of media from print, digital animation and mosaic to sculpture and glass work.

This exhibition in Venice, put together by a couple of Ohio based museums—the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art, with support from Sean Kelley Gallery—, aims to burnish her credentials as one of the leading South Asian diaspora artists. Also read: Lounge Loves: Hand-winding watches, cheesy chocolate and more The Palazzo provides a breathtaking marquee setting for the show. While many Venetian palazzos have been repurposed as collateral venues