Shahzia Sikander: Extraordinary Realities

Shahzia Sikander: Extraordinary Realities presents Shahzia Sikander’s powerful early work, created between 1987 and 2003, from South Asian, West Asian, and Western perspectives, illuminating new understandings for a wide audience. Charting her early development as an artist in Lahore and the United States, the book reclaims her critical role in bringing Indo-Persian manuscript painting traditions into dialogue with contemporary art, international art discourse of the 1990s, and contemporary global practices and debates.

This lively volume tracks the first fifteen years in the prolific career of Shahzia Sikander (RISD MFA 1995, Painting and Printmaking), reclaiming her pioneering role in reviving Indo-Persian manuscript painting traditions as contemporary practice in Pakistan and tracing her early years in the US as she created work that explores gender and sexuality, cultural identity, racial narratives, and colonial and postcolonial histories.

Flexibound, 176 pages. Copublished 2021 by Hirmer Publishers and the RISD Museum. This volume complements the exhibition Shahzia Sikander: Extraordinary Realities, traveling to the Morgan Library & Museum (NY), the RISD Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (TX).

Edited by Sadia Abbas and Jan Howard; contributors include Sadia Abbas, Bashir Ahmad, Dennis Congdon, Faisal Devji, Gayatri Gopinath, Jan Howard, Vasif Kortun, Rick Lowe, Julie Mehretu, Kishwar Rizvi, Shahzia Sikander, and John W. Smith. 

Proceeds from RISD Museum publications support the work of the museum.