Shahzia Sikander

Shahzia Sikander is widely celebrated for subverting Central and South-Asian miniature painting traditions into dialogue with contemporary international art practices and launching the form known today as neo-miniature. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Sikander earned a B.F.A. in 1991 from the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore and was the first artist from the department to challenge the medium’s technical and aesthetic framework. Sikander’s breakthrough work, The Scroll, 1989–90, received national critical acclaim in Pakistan, which brought international recognition to this medium within contemporary art practices. Sikander went on to pursue an M.F.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design from 1993 to 1995. Over the subsequent twenty years, Sikander’s work includes paintings, video animations, mosaic, and sculpture. Solo exhibitions include shows at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in Texas; the Morgan Library and Museum in New York; the RISD Museum in Providence, Rhode Island; Jesus College in Cambridge, United Kingdom; the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, among many others. Sikander has also been featured in group exhibitions at international venues, including the Sharjah Biennial 11; the 8th and 13th Istanbul Biennials; the Smithsonian Museum, National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC; and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; and the 54th Venice Biennale in Italy. Sikander has been the recipient of many notable awards, including most recently the Pollock Prize for Creativity in 2023, the Fukuoka Arts and Culture Prize in 2022, as well as the Asia Society Award for Significant Contribution to Contemporary Art in 2015, a Medal of Art by the U.S. Department of State in 2012, and a MacArthur Fellowship in 2006. Sikander's major new outdoor project, an 18 foot and an 8 foot bronze female sculpture, are currently on view in Madison Square Park and on the roof of the Appellate Courthouse in Manhattan until June 2023.