Details
Shahzia Sikander (B. 1969)
Nemesis
signed 'Shazia Sikander' (on DVD)
(i) DVD and beta master
(ii) watercolour, gouache, ink and graphite on paper
(i) 2 minutes on continuous loop
(ii) image: 6⅝ x 9⅞in. (16.7 x 26cm.)
sheet: 10⅝ x 13¾in. (26.9 x 35cm.)
Executed in 2003, this work is number one from an edition of five
Provenance
Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.
Exhibited
Illinois, Krannert Art Museum, Beyond East and West: Seven Transitional Artists, 2004-2005, no. 24 (another from the edition exhibited, illustrated in colour, pp. 70-71). This exhibition later travelled to Louisiana, Louisiana State University Museum of Art; New Hampshire, Hood Museum of Art; Massachusetts, Williams College Museum of Art.
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Please note this lot is the property of a consumer. See H1 of the Conditions of Sale.
Sale Room Notice
Please note the medium is (i) DVD and Beta Master (ii) watercolour, gouache, ink and graphite on paper, and not as stated in the printed catalogue.
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Lot Essay

'As a student [at the Rhode Island School of Design] I remember people not giving me much feedback because they felt they didn't know the proper way to address my work. It's not that people in Pakistan know better; perhaps a handful of art historians may know all the styles and motifs I am using, I am playing with things that happened many, many years ago, over which nobody has ownership and to which anybody has access. It is not specific to Pakistani culture.
I am very committed to understanding the miniature tradition much better. There has not been a lot of good critical writing about it. In that respect, for me, there's a lot of freedom, because you're navigating things that have never been addressed. But at the same time, I feel that there's a lot of miniature painting that can't be translated - that can't be explained in words or expressed in another visual language - and I like that aspect. Any translation also reveals a consciousness of who is going to consume the picture, so there is already a given that the audience needs an explanation of the picture, that their own interpretation is not trustworthy' Shahzia Sikander

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