The Morgan Library & Museum is proud to present Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander’s Extraordinary Realities.
Shahzia Sikander is internationally celebrated for bringing miniature painting traditions from South and Central Asia into dialogue with contemporary art practice. She richly interrogates gender, sexuality, race, class, and history, creating open-ended narratives that have sustained her as one of the most significant artists working today.
This exhibition includes nearly 60 works borrowed from public and private collections. It tracks the first fifteen years of her artistic journey – from her groundbreaking deconstruction of manuscript painting in Pakistan to the development of a new personal vocabulary at the Rhode Island School of Design, expanded explorations around identity as a Core Fellow at the Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and her global outlook during her first years in New York.
Shahzia Sikander: Extraordinary Realities is accompanied by a publication of the same name, edited by Sadia Abbas and Jan Howard, comprising new archival material, fresh scholarly essays, and conversations with artists, curators, and Sikander’s teachers.
Explore the exhibition here.