NYAB Event - Shahzia Sikander “Portrait of the Artist”

Shahzia Sikander “Portrait of the Artist”

Pace Prints Chelsea

[Image: Shahzia Sikander "Portrait of the Artist" (2016), Two in a set of four etchings]

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For what else is Miraj if not the fulfillment of any artist’s deepest longing: to have made a journey into the great unknown-to have seen the unseeable and to return to the world as we know it with the capacity to express the inexpressible? -Excerpt from “Breath of Miraj” by Ayad Akhtar

Pace Prints presents its first edition with Shahzia Sikander, Portrait of the Artist (2016). The portfolio of four etchings includes an original text by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and novelist Ayad Akhtar.

Comprised of four etchings, the edition references historical Miraj paintings depicting the visionary night journey of the Prophet Muhammad. Etching is both the medium and the conceptual underpinning for combining diverse source imagery, speaking to the plurality of Sikander’s art historical and socio-political subject matter. Layered with portraits of the author and the artist, the Miraj functions as a metaphor for the artistic journey in search of truth.

Sikander’s interest in the plays of Ayad Akhtar arose from the playwright’s ability to disrupt entrenched ideas regarding Muslim identity. “Invigorating, alive and invested in change, Akhtar’s work does not fit any obligatory idea of a Muslim identity,” says Sikander. The collaborators seek to reclaim the idea of identity as multifaceted and mercurial, open to influence and experience.

The edition is also included in Sikander’s first major solo exhibition in Hong Kong, Apparatus of Power at the Asia Society, on view through July 9, 2016.