Shahzia Sikander
dal 1/9/2009 al 29/9/2009
Segnalato da
1/9/2009
Shahzia Sikander
Para Site Art Space, Hong Kong
Authority As Approximation
curated by Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya
Para/Site Art Space is honored to present Authority As Approximation, a retrospective of time
based video works by acclaimed artist Shahzia Sikander. For her first solo presentation in China,
five video works have been selected, spanning from 2003 to 2008, representing an in-depth
study on her research on moving image. The exhibition includes seminal works like SpiNN
(2003), which was shown in Venice Biennial Arsenale exhibition, and it also comprises her latest
film, the video-essay Bending The Barrels (2008).
Shahzia Sikander’s Bending The Barrels depicts a Pakistani Army military brass band, and
examines this formation as a political device. The work stresses the interaction of a
superimposed text and the accompanying soundtrack. On the meaning of this film, cultural critic
Aditya Dev Sood explains that “In her choice of Pakistani Army Bands as a subject for visual
capture and representation, Sikander triggers deep resonances from within the tradition of Indo-
Islamic miniature painting.
The corporeal language, rhythm, space-making and compositional
effects that she discovers and creates in film appear rooted in courtly spectacles as well as in
their painterly representation, in various Mughal and later Company and British Imperial styles.”
This work was premiered earlier this year in New York.
The work of Shahzia Sikander is often seen as a critique and a deconstruction of the traditional
imagery of India and Pakistan. Aside from her drawings on paper, her video works also consist of
interferences that give rise to other readings, where the combination of musical composition and
images submerges us in an all-encompassing experience.
On this occasion the venue has been transformed into a black box screening gallery to comply
with the semantics and standards of the moving image inside the gallery space. The exhibition
allows us to delve into one aspect of Shahzia Sikander’s artistic praxis that constitutes a
departure from her seminal miniature drawings, and unveils to us the critical rigor of her approach
to other media.
Shahzia Sikander has had solo shows in Whitney Museum (New York), Hirshhorn Museum and
Sculpture Garden (Washington D.C), The Renaissance Society (Chicago), MCA (Sydney) and
Ikon Gallery (Birmingham), among others.
Opening: Wednesday 2 September, 2009; 7pm
Curator’s Talk by Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya
(Sunday) 6 September 2009; 2pm at Para/Site Art Space
Para/Site Art Space
G/F, 4 Po Yan Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong
Free admission