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The Jina Parsvanatha Sculpture: A Study in Symbolism

November 28, 2012

Josheen Oberoi briefly explores the signs and meanings embedded in ancient Indian Jina sculptures

New York: Jainism, one of the oldest faiths in India, is defined by its commitment to non-violence and a self-directed effort to attain enlightenment. The ‘Supreme Beings’ who achieve this state of liberation and assist others in the process are called Jinas (victors) or Tirthankaras. There are said to have been twenty four Jinas in Jainism, the last of whom, Vardhamana Mahavira, is possibly the most widely known among non practitioners of Jainism.

However, when it comes to the arts and representation in Jainism there is a rich history of sculptures of many of the Jinas, replete with symbolism relating to their positions, accompanying objects, and their meaning.

Jina Parsvanatha
Object: Sculpture
Place of origin: Garsoppa, India (probably, made)
Date: 12th century (made)
Materials and Techniques: Black shale
Museum number: 931(IS)
Image courtesy: Victoria and Albert Museum

Two similar sculptures from different time periods are wonderful examples of Jina Parsvanathas and their symbolism. This beautiful 12th century sculpture (on the left) from the Victoria and Albert Museum collection in London represents the twenty third Jina Parsvanatha, who is revered as a great teacher and is one of four Jinas most often portrayed in Jain art. A similar sculpture in the ongoing Indian Antiquities auction conducted by Collectibles Antiques India and powered by Saffronart is from the 11th century, created during the rule of the Hoysala Dynasty. It is a distinctive work from a time period rarely seen in private hands; most works from this Dynasty are in museums or preserved at heritage sites.

Parsvanatha lived in the 8th century BC. He was the son of King Ashvasena and Queen Vamanadevi of Varanasi who renounced the world at the age of thirty to become an ascetic. He attained absolute knowledge and became the twenty-third Tirthankara or Jina in Jainism and is associated with the color blue and a seven hooded serpent.

The Jina fact file on the Victoria & Albert Museum website allows us as viewers to read the sculpture as well. Jinas are always shown in either a padmasana (seated) or kayotsarga (standing) position. The two Jina Parsvanathas in discussion here are standing; the immobility and discipline required is considered a form of severe penance and asceticism.

Jina Parsvanatha
Greenish Schist
11th Century
Hoysala Dynasty
Karnataka
Height: 51 in (129.5 cm)
Image courtesy: Saffronart Indian Antiquities Auction (Nov 28-29, 2012), Lot 3

The three tiered umbrella at the top of the sculpture is a symbol of the Jina’s spiritual sovereignty, while the seven headed snake, Dharanendra, protects the Jina with his coils and a canopy over his head. Jinas, like those in these two sculptures, are the only Jain figures shown unclothed as a sign of their absolute enlightenment and rejection of all materialism. They are often flanked by guardian spirits called yakshas and yakshis, positioned in these sculptures by the feet of the Jina.

The strength of the physical body and the powerful features in the sculpture above is distinctive of the Hoysala Dynasty, which oversaw great developments in architecture and classically modeled sculptures during its rule.

You can hear some interesting ideas about the importance of the seven hooded serpent and the significance of the standing position in context of the Jina Parsvanatha in the collection of the V&A Museum here.

Rathin Barman: The first Asian Artist to Exhibit at deCordova Sculpture Park

November 23, 2012

Guest blogger, Diana Campbell in conversation with the Rathin Barman about his work at the deCordova Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts

Rathin Barman, Untitled, 2012
Courtesy of the Artist, Experimenter Contemporary Art, Kolkata, India, and the Creative India Foundation

Mumbai: In September 2012, deCordova Sculpture Park exhibited its first sculpture by an Asian artist, Rathin Barman’s Untitled, 2012, which debuted with Experimenter at the Frieze New York Sculpture Park curated by Tom Eccles. deCordova Sculpture Park is one of America’s premier sculpture institutions, and it is investing strategically to be the best sculpture park in the US by 2016. The Creative India Foundation is obviously thrilled to partner with them to spread the reach of Indian creativity internationally ahead of opening our own sculpture park.

deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts

Nick Capasso, the Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs at deCordova Sculpture Park shared, “The installation process went very well, and everyone here is thrilled with the sculpture! We honestly could not be more pleased, and Rathin himself is very happy with the iteration of Untitled at deCordova, which looks very different than how it appeared at Frieze in New York…This artwork has been a success for us on every level – aesthetically, educationally, and strategically.” I am excitedly awaiting images of the work in the snow once the seasons change.

I took some time to interview Rathin Barman and his gallerists Prateek and Priyanka Raja about Rathin’s experience at deCordova and to learn about how they saw the work transform from an art fair context to an institutional context. Rathin Barman had his first solo show less than a year ago, and he is already making solid marks on the international sculpture scene. I look forward to seeing Rathin’s work develop as he continues to experiment, experience, and learn. To avoid reader fatigue, I have broken the interview into two parts, first an interview with Rathin Barman. The conversation with Prateek and Priyanka Raja will follow in my next post.

DC: The work looks completely different at deCordova than at Frieze. How did you react to the new site and how did that experience translate into this work?

Rathin Barman . Untitled, 2012 . Sculpture Park, New York Art Fair
Courtesy: Experimenter, Kolkata and the Creative India Foundation

RB (Rathin Barman): Randall’s Island, the venue for Frieze NY 2012 and deCordova Sculpture Park are completely different sites in terms of environment, urbanity & development with respect to installing Untitled 2012. Randall’s Island is among the lone green areas in New York City surrounded by three mainland city parts, and it is entrapped with box-like architectural structures. I have reacted to the site and situation of the entire physical space of the island while proposing and installing the work at Frieze Art Fair.

Three massive wall structures made of iron construction bars are the metaphoric representation of the shape and geographical position of the island both visually & conceptually. These wall structures created a cage like space in between where viewers can walk through. The inner part of the walls structured organically free flowing, loosely associates formation of tree branches, while the outer part is much more architectonic which simulates the architectural set up of closest city line.

The rubble that partly filled the wall structures was collected from demolished building sites from Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs connected sites to the situations. Moreover, the form allowed viewers to look and experience the work and the surrounded sites of urban development at the same time. It was interesting to see the city through an organically free flowing structure partly obstructed with rubble! It gives a feeling of the city’s tenacious need to grow against its own internal fragility.

While regard to my experience at deCordova Sculpture Park at Lincoln Town, Massachusetts and Lincoln area, my excitement and feeling was totally different from Randall’s Island. More than 95% area of deCordova and Lincoln are green, almost uninterrupted natural space making a strong contrast with the nearby city of Boston. Here the ground plan of the installation is almost unchanged but the rubble (again found locally) filled all over the structure commenting a different realization toward the site and situation. There is no such city line to see but the beauty of nature has been obstructed by the rubble which would remind the viewer of urban development/expansion.

Rathin Barman, Untitled, 2012
View at deCordova Sculpture Park
Courtesy of the Artist, Experimenter Contemporary Art, Kolkata, India, and the Creative India Foundation

Gradations of the park and viewing the installation from inside & outside add an interesting dialogue between the work and the landscape, in context of nature & urbanization and stipulation of their existence.

DC: People think rubble is rubble, what differences did you find between NY rubble and Massachusetts rubble? And how is that different from India? What does that have to say about the respective changes in urban development between these spaces?

RB: One of the most interesting parts of the work is that I made the iron structure in Kolkata, and it’s been transported to NY and then Massachusetts. And I had never been to the US before proposing the project, so I realized the urban site and situation of US virtually and theoretically rather than carrying a physical experience of it while creating the work.

But, when I was making the iron wall structure, the filigree of organic flow onto the structure definitely came from my physical experiences of Indian cities and their surroundings. However, environmental issues regarding urbanization and expansion of urban space are a common challenge to the urban developers throughout the world. In that sense, Untitled 2012 has a universal context.

Rathin Barman, Untitled, 2012 (detail)
Courtesy of the Artist, Experimenter Contemporary Art, Kolkata, India, and the Creative India Foundation

Using locally found rubble into the installation is a response to character particular site and its surrounding development. The Massachusetts rubble had been delivered twice, in both times it contains almost 50% of soil with bricks, stones & concrete, but in New York soil percentage was close to zero. It was almost 100% concrete and bricks. NYC has much more crowded with buildings than Boston the reason why you can hardly find soil into rubble. This is an interesting characteristic of rubble found in two different cities.

DC: You gave several presentations during your time at deCordova, how did the audiences react to your work? Any particularly good questions that pushed the way you think about the work?

RB: Interaction with deCordova audiences was amazing. These were very intimate conversations and I was pleased to know that the local population responded well to my work. Most of my works including Untitled have dealt with multiple ideas related to urban expansion, history & development, environmental issues, relation between rural and urban through formal and material representations. Hence, the viewer interactions were like discussions with each other. Viewers could identify and read/associate with the form, material and the process of the work with his/her experiences, and that way they played a very crucial role with my art practice and often added new layer or meaning or facet to the work. The conversations opened up new angles for me. During an open conversation one lady associated the rubble with 9/11, which I had never thought of at any stage of the production or installation of the work, to her, the rubble meant something else, a different sort of demolition.

Rathin Barman, Untitled, 2012 (another view)
Courtesy of the Artist, Experimenter Contemporary Art, Kolkata, India, and the Creative India Foundation

DC: How was the process of transforming the work with deCordova’s curators?

RB: Working with deCordova was a fantastic experience. During the installation process we have discussed about the history of deCordova, the sculpture park, settlement of Lincoln Town, history of Boston’s urban planning and development etc. and at the same time urbanization in India, these discussions had an important role to the process. My practice and I were very beautifully absorbed into the park and its people, which helped me respond to the space.

Diana Campbell is Founding Director and Chief Curator, Creative India Foundation, Hyderabad, a private foundation which advances Indian contemporary art globally and is developing India’s first international sculpture park. She is responsible for directing the foundation’s programming, selecting artists & commissioning sculptures for international sculpture parks as well as the foundation’s future park slated for 2015. Through her work with the foundation, she is a key advisor for renowned international sculpture parks such as de Cordova Sculpture Park, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wanås etc. on Indian artists for their collections. Campbell has curated sculpture projects for the India Art Fair, and SH Contemporary fair in Shanghai, and has contributed to projects at Frieze New York, Frieze London and Art Hong Kong. She is also is the co-curator for the Mumbai City Pavilion for the 9th Shanghai Biennale. Campbell also advises real estate developers on their public art programs in India. Prior to moving to India in 2010, Campbell curated exhibitions independently at prestigious galleries such as Marlborough Gallery, and worked at Sotheby’s New York and the Neue Galerie. Campbell is a Princeton and Independent Curators International (ICI) alumna, and speaks Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan

November 7, 2012

Josheen Oberoi revisits the seminal 2009 exhibition Hanging Fire at Asia Society, New York

New York: Asia Society, the premier global institution promoting understanding between Asia and the United States, held the first museum survey exhibition of contemporary Pakistani art in the United States at their flagship space in New York in 2009. Curated by the renowned writer and curator Salima Hashmi, the exhibition Hanging Fire was a study on the vibrancy and multiplicity of praxis of contemporary artists in Pakistan.

On the occasion of Saffronart’s inaugural auction of Art of Pakistan, starting today, I retrace my steps to a piece I had originally penned for the Saffronart website in 2009. The show included the work of fifteen Pakistani artists in diverse media, many of who are part of the upcoming auction. As a survey exhibition of contemporary artists and art practices in the country, the exhibition served to undermine the monolithic perspective of Pakistan and its art that often still dominates the news media. The artists in the exhibition addressed contemporary concerns ranging from the personal and local to the regional and global, thus offering a glimpse into the active internal dialogues that animate Pakistan. What follows is a brief survey of what I saw.

Hamra Abbas
Ride 2
2008
Painted fiberglass and wood
Approx. H. 72 x W. 39 x L. 94 in.
Image courtesy of the artist and Green Cardamom
Image source: http://www.asiasociety.org
From the exhibition – Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan, Asia Society, New York, 2009-10

Amongst the works on display was Hamra Abbas‘s Ride 2, 2008, an electric-pink fiberglass sculpture of Buraq (a mythic winged creature – half woman, half horse) believed to be Prophet Mohammad’s holy mare. A popular motif in Pakistan, it is often illustrated in classical narratives. However, it was the folk representation of the Buraq that Abbas reproduced in this life-size work, that claims the religious icon within a female narrative, and, through it, signifies both power and freedom.

Naiza Khan
Spine
2008
Galvanized steel and suede leather
H. 26 x W. 12 5/8 x D. 6 3/8 in. (66 x 32 x 16 cm)
Image courtesy of Mahmood Ali
Image source: http://www.asiasociety.org
From the exhibition – Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan, Asia Society, New York, 2009-10

Adeela Suleman and Naiza Khan’s works also evoked questions of identity and of the politics of the body. Naiza Khan’s sculpture Spine, 2008, for instance was a corset-like cage made of galvanized steel with red suede stitched over it. The sculpture appeared to be an armour-like trap encompassing and protecting the body, but was also seductive in the choice, colour and texture of the suede. Explaining her work, the artist says, “These objects occupy a place between love and war, and are ambiguous in their position of aggression and seduction.”

The sculptures by Adeela Suleman displayed in the exhibition were made of found domestic objects (tongs, jars, funnels and spoons) and physically resembled the structure of helmets worn by two-wheeler drivers in Pakistan. In Suleman’s works, objects associated with female-use are re-framed within a non-domestic setting, evoking questions of gender roles and boundaries. Also included in the exhibition were photographs of women wearing these object-helmets, bringing immediacy to the works by inserting the gendered self into them.

Mahreen Zuberi
Open Wide I
2008
Gouache on wasli
H. 9 5/8 x W. 12 5/16 in.
Image courtesy of the artist
Image source: http://www.asiasociety.org
From the exhibition – Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan, Asia Society, New York, 2009-10

Mahreen Zuberi showed six “austerely rendered vignettes” of the symbiotic relationship between pain and pleasure, executed in gouache on Wasli paper. Using the traditional miniature format, the artist presented images of objects that had the relationship of aggressor and victim. In one of the works, for example, disembodied hands holding dentist’s tools probe a similarly body-less mouth set on a flat negative space. This exploration of the human psyche using inanimate objects is a familiar trope for the artist as also seen in the work below from the upcoming Saffronart auction.

Mahreen Zuberi
Hysteria
2008
Gouache on Wasli
10.5 x 15.5 in
From: Saffronart’s 24 Hour auction: Art of Pakistan, Lot 68

Imran Qureshi
Moderate Enlightenment
2007
Gouache on Wasli
8.5 x 6.5 in
From: Saffronart’s 24 Hour Auction: Art of Pakistan, Lot 31
Exhibited and published: Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan, Asia Society, New York, 2009-10

Imran Qureshi’s works share the same medium and scale as Zuberi’s, but are deliberately sociopolitical in their intent. Working in the tradition of Mughal miniature portraits, Qureshi contemporarized the figures in his paintings. On the surface, their setting, background and garb appeared traditional, but the figures were depicted exercising with dumbbells or reading contemporary books; questioning stereotyping based on appearance. Qureshi had also installed a site-specific painting at the Asia Society for this exhibition. One of his important works in the current auction that was part of the Hanging Fire exhibition is on the right here.

Like Qureshi, Faiza Butt deals with the issue of stereotyping, but relates it to the recent, global increase in tension and fear. In two of her works on display at Asia Society (Get out of My Dreams, I and II, 2008), she presented noble young men in settings reminiscent of ‘Paradise’, staring out of the frame to meet the viewer’s gaze. A closer examination of the works, however, revealed that the figures are surrounded by symbols of modernity and technology like hairdryers, wine glasses, electric razors, and US currency, and that the young men themselves are bedecked with signifiers commonly linked to contemporary religious radicalism.

Faiza Butt
Get out of my dreams I
2008
Ink on polyester film
H. 24 x W. 19 in.
Image courtesy of the artist
Image source: http://www.asiasociety.org
From the exhibition – Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan, Asia Society, New York, 2009-10

Huma Mulji
High Rise: Lake City Drive
2009
Taxidermic buffalo, sheet metal, fiberglass, henna, and Duco paint
H. 137 7/8 x W. 82 7/8 x D. 26 7/8 in.
Image courtesy of the artist
Image source: http://www.asiasociety.org
From the exhibition – Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan, Asia Society, New York, 2009-10

Two of the other artists, Huma Mulji and Asma Mundrawala, dealt with the specific concerns of urban-rural relationships and the changing landscape of Pakistan, albeit in divergent ways. Mulji’s installation (High Rise: Lake City Drive, 2009) – a vulnerable looking taxidermic buffalo placed on a high Greek column – confronted the question of progress as defined by changing economies and the uneasy relationship between urban and rural Pakistan.

Mundrawala confined her work to the context of Karachi and the effects of modernization on its landscape and culture. Her works included pop-up books and a video installation, which re-imagined nostalgic scenes from moments of popular culture. Using photographs of people she didn’t personally know from her family albums, she reinvented idyllic Karachi scenes that did not necessarily exist anymore, “recreating an unsatisfactory world by furnishing it with imagined alternatives”.

A reimagining of oppositions was also seen in Rashid Rana’s photographic montages. In Red Carpet I, 2007, he created an elaborate, vibrant mosaic of a Balochi carpet using images from Pakistani slaughter houses as its minute, bloody components, making his concerns with duality and contradiction explicit. Ayaz Jokhio’s drawings also emphasized the visual impact of physical forms and the incongruity of their different functions. In Diptych No 1, 2008, the image of a pen was juxtaposed with an enlarged drawing of a bullet, startling the viewer with both their visual similarities and the sharp divergence of their functions.

Rashid Rana
Red Carpet 1
2007
Edition 1/5; C-print + DIASEC
H. 95 x W. 135 in.
Image courtesy of Gallery Chemould and Chattertjee & Lal Mumbai
Image source: http://www.asiasociety.org
From the exhibition – Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan, Asia Society, New York, 2009-10

Bani Abidi’s ironic video titled Shah Pipe Band Learns The Star Spangled Banner, 2004, followed a brass pipe band in Lahore hired by the artist to learn the Star Spangled Banner (the American national anthem). Through this work, the artist captured the anxiety of the uncertain times in Pakistan, and the country’s ambiguous relationship with the West. The futility of the exercise of learning the tune and the irony of it underlined this sentiment for the artist.

Ali Raza
Throne II
2008
Burnt paper collage and acrylic on canvas
H. 72 x W. 48 in.
Image courtesy of the artist
Image source: http://www.asiasociety.org
From the exhibition – Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan, Asia Society, New York, 2009-10

Also on display were Anwar Saeed’s explicit illustrations in the book, I Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual, a true story of a boy imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp for being homosexual. By rendering these images, fantastical and sexual in form, the written story of pain and humiliation was made personal by the artist.

Like Saeed, Ali Raza also used text, but as raw material for his paintings. He burned advertisements and used the ash to create collages with acrylic paint, commenting on the issues of censorship and corruption that continue to confront Pakistani society on a daily basis.

Importantly, paintings by Zahoor ul Akhlaq, who died in 1999, were also part of this exhibition. An important figure amongst Pakistani artists, he revived the techniques of miniature painting, and encouraged students to innovate with subject matter. This teaching is evident in one of his works that was on display, the triptych A Visit to the Inner Sanctum 1-3, 1997, which although in the style of miniature painting was abstract in content and form.

This exhibition represented the range and vitality of contemporary Pakistani art, in terms of medium as well as content. The exhibition, not being too far in the past, is also a significant marker in the continuing practices of these and many other artists living and working in Pakistan.

Serigraphy: A Word of Advice for New Collectors

November 6, 2012

Amy Lin of Saffronart explores the benefits of collecting limited edition serigraphs for new collectors

New York: The questions “What should I collect?” and “Where should I begin?” come up very often for collectors looking at modern Indian art for the first time. Of course, there are the great masters, M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza, V.S. Gaitonde and others, but originals cost a small fortune and are quite difficult to come by. So what can an aspiring young collector do?

Serigraph making process
Image Credit: http://www.archerindia.com

One possible starting point is serigraphs. Later this week, The Story by Saffronart will be featuring a collection of signed, limited edition serigraphs from modern Indian masters such as Husain, S.H. Raza and Thota Vaikuntam. It is a wonderful opportunity for young collectors to purchase works by renowned artists at affordable prices. Now, your next question will probably be: Seri-what?

Serigraphy is an English printing technique pioneered in the early 20th century. It’s similar to silk screening or screen printing, where a stencil is used to print directly on the paper. The stencil is made by stretching porous fabric over a wooden or metallic frame. Next, the printer will use paper or fabric to block off the image’s negatives. The stenciled screen is then placed over the printed medium while oil or water based ink is spread evenly across the screen. Finally, the artist uses a rubber squeegee to press the ink through the porous fabric and onto the paper below. If the artwork requires a different colour, the print is allowed to dry before another colour or stencil is applied. Here is a step by step demo of the process.

The result from this laborious process is a fine quality print that rivals the original but costs a fraction of the price. While a Husain original could easily fetch over $100,000, an authorized and signed serigraph print by the artist will only cost 3-5% of the price.

Skeptics may argue that investing in reproductions is not worth it. But many would agree that serigraphs are fine artworks in their own right. Each serigraph print differs slightly from the next, picking up subtle nuances in character and attitude through the printing process. In addition, most artists will print their serigraphs in limited, numbered editions, enhancing their exclusivity.

M F Husain designing a serigraphy scroll
Image Credit: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story
/Affordable+art/1/17766.html

Husain was one of the artists who championed the artistic value of serigraphs by collaborating with Anil Reila, founder of Ahmedabad’s Archer Art Gallery. In 2000, Husain designed his own serigraph scrolls and had 500 editions of his Ashtha Vinayak made. This ambitious project was a great success and the prints sold out within days. Husain viewed his art with a populous mentality, always wanting to ensure it would be accessible and affordable to as many as possible. Other galleries such as the Serigraph Studio have legitimized serigraphy as a true art form by holding exhibitions exclusively of these prints.

Perhaps it’s the linear nature of Indian art that makes it suitable for printing or its bold colours that beckon for reproduction. Either way, serigraph prints are an excellent point for young collectors to start their journeys with Indian art. As Relia puts it in an interview with India Today, “The value rises when the edition is sold out and availability becomes scarce.” And later adds, “With Indian art now getting appreciation and applause everywhere, it is important that people have easy access to art prints by the great artists of our country.”

Zarina: Paper Like Skin at the Hammer Museum

November 5, 2012

Guest Blogger Tracy Buck visits the first retrospective of artist Zarina Hashmi at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles

Los Angeles: On September 30, The Hammer Museum, located in Westwood near the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, opened the first retrospective of artist Zarina Hashmi.  Zarina: Paper Like Skin is currently on view until December 30, 2012; it then travels to the Guggenheim in New York in the early spring of 2013 and to the Art Institute of Chicago in summer 2013.  Zarina’s elegant and understated works, executed sculpturally and via the manipulation of paper, include woodcuts and etchings, paper that has been cut and pinpricked and woven, an original cut block, and bronze and tin sculpture.

Zarina, born in India in 1937, has lived in the United States since the 1970s.  The exhibition’s curator, Allegra Pesenti, worked closely with Zarina in her studio/home in New York City to select pieces that represent her large body of work dating from 1961 to the present.  Within these works – undertaken not only in her New York studio but in her various former homes in Thailand, India, Pakistan, Europe, and Japan – are quietly and poignantly woven themes of memory, displacement, movement, dislocation, and the intimate and pliable connection to homes current and remembered.

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Among her works are woodcut explorations of the trauma and loss during the India/Pakistan Partition (Dividing Line, 2001); the jagged Radcliffe Line here appears as a scar cut beyond even the otherwise contained boundaries of map and land mass.  A separate series (These Cities Blotted into the Wilderness [Adrienne Rice After Ghalib], 2003) envisions and commemorates various cities that have been bombed in recent years.  Homes I Have Made/A Life in Nine Lines, 1997 is a series of floor plans of houses and apartments throughout the world, rented and made into homes, however temporary, and now remembered.  An engagement with line, with darkness and white, with paper and its materiality and subtlety, are at the heart of these works.

Although most often associated with paper, one might consider Zarina to be an artist who works in the “medium” of Urdu as well.  In several of Zarina’s works (Letters From Home, 2004; Atlas of my World, 2001, These Cities Blotted into the Wilderness [Adrienne Rice After Ghalib], 2003; Travels with Rani, 2008, among others) the Urdu script becomes a raw material, visually manipulated, recalling both the histories of Independence and Partition of the subcontinent, as well as Zarina’s own story of her family’s move to Pakistan some years following Partition. It also recalls, to those who can read it, the ghazal tradition and its thematic weight of melancholy and loss, of separation and longing, of displacement and disconnect.

One might consider the medium of printmaking itself to work in a similar way.  The printmaking process is a series of elisions, of secrets, its final printed product a sort of masking of the intense physicality of carving a block and running a press. Unlike gestural painting, for example, that draws attention outright and purposefully to the physical effort of its production, printmaking operates via a system of reversals, removing rather than adding material to ultimately produce an image out of this void, obscuring the repetitive gouging to produce not scarred lines but rather the lack they result in, the finished product in the form of white emptiness of paper. This repetition and physicality is revealed in her pinpricked, knotted, and scarred paper works, but subtly – in slightly raised white surface and shadow on white page; they record persistence rather than proclamation.

The fact that the show was lovingly and painstakingly conceived and researched by curator Pesenti is clear in the beautiful execution of the exhibition and in its quiet and respectful design. The exhibition’s catalog, with notable essays by Pesenti and by UCLA professor of Comparative Literature Aamir Mufti, replicates this care and attention and offers further insight into the work and life of Zarina, her choice of paper as medium and her connection to, and implications of, her use of Urdu. This retrospective, a first for the artist and, it may be said, long overdue, speaks quietly but powerfully of home and memory and its various definitions and delineations, in an abstract but deeply evocative language.

Watch Zarina talk about her work and this retrospective in a conversation with the exhibition curator here.

Tracy Buck holds MA degrees in South Asian Cultures and Languages and in Museum Studies, and has worked in the Collections Management and Curatorial departments of several history and art museums.  She is currently pursing a PhD in Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles.