{"id":149452,"date":"2020-12-03T11:38:59","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T16:38:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=149452"},"modified":"2020-12-03T14:40:53","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T19:40:53","slug":"venus-and-the-devata","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/03\/venus-and-the-devata\/","title":{"rendered":"Venus and the Devata"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shahzia Sikander\u2019s first New York solo exhibition in more than a decade showcases an astonishing range of work: paintings, mosaics, animations, and her inaugural foray into freestanding sculpture, <\/em>Promiscuous Intimacies, a stunning monument to desire that depicts both a Greco-Roman goddess and an Indian <\/em>devata.<\/em> Sikander is an artist whose talents and ambitions threaten to outstrip the materials available to her; the works featured here confront the climate crisis, religion, migration, war, memory, and much more. But despite the daunting abundance of ideas and mediums, careful attention reveals that the show itself is a sort of mosaic, the pieces all slotting into place to form a portrait of the artist over the past few years of her practice. The works on paper inform the animations; the animations inform the individual mosaics (in part, Sikander credits her experiments with the latter form to \u201cthe dynamism of the pixel that emerged in my mind as a parallel to the unit of a mosaic\u201d). \u201cWeeping Willows, Liquid Tongues<\/a>\u201d will be on view at Sean Kelly Gallery through December 19, 2020. A selection of images from the show appears below.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Shahzia Sikander, Double Sight<\/em>, 2018, glass mosaic with patinated brass frame, 63 1\/4 x 44 1\/4″. \u00a9 Shahzia Sikander Photo: Jason Wyche. Courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York<\/p><\/div>\n

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Shahzia Sikander, Arose<\/em>, 2019\u20132020, ink and gouache on paper, 76 x 51″. \u00a9 Shahzia Sikander. Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Shahzia Sikander, Oil and Poppies<\/em>, 2019\u20132020, ink and gouache on paper, 98 x 51″. \u00a9 Shahzia Sikander. Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Shahzia Sikander, Kinship<\/em>, 2019\u20132020, ink and gouache on paper, 60 x 96″. \u00a9 Shahzia Sikander. Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Shahzia Sikander, Arose<\/em>, 2020, glass mosaic with patinated brass frame, 84 x 62″. \u00a9 Shahzia Sikander. Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Shahzia Sikander, Mirrored<\/em>, 2019, ink and gouache on paper, 85 x 51″. \u00a9 Shahzia Sikander. Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Installation view of \u201cShahzia Sikander:\u00a0Weeping Willows, Liquid Tongues\u201d\u00a0at Sean Kelly, New York, November 5\u2013December 19, 2020. Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Installation view of \u201cShahzia Sikander:\u00a0Weeping Willows, Liquid Tongues\u201d\u00a0at Sean Kelly, New York, November 5\u2013December 19, 2020. Photo: Adam Reich. Courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Shahzia Sikander, The Perennial Gaze<\/em>, 2018, glass mosaic mounted on plywood in brass frame, 70 1\/4 x 43 1\/4″. \u00a9 Shahzia Sikander. Photo: Jason Wyche. Courtesy of Sean Kelly, New York.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWeeping Willows, Liquid Tongues<\/a>\u201d will be on view at Sean Kelly Gallery through December 19, 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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