Shahzia Sikander and Glenn Lowry in Conversation

March 26, 2009

1 hr 5 min

A conversation with internationally acclaimed artist Shahzia Sikander and art historian and MoMA Director, Glenn Lowry.
Shahzia Sikanders work takes apart the conventional methods of addressing traditional miniature paintings and reassembles them to expand their associations, inserting new dialogues often subversive in nature. Using wit, irony and paradox, Sikander’s inventiveness draws upon literary, pop, media and art historical contexts. Her work ranges from intimate watercolors, large scale wall installations and digital animation and video. Sikander studied at both the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan and the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence.
Glenn Lowry is an art historian and current Director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). A noted scholar of Islamic arts and architecture, Lowry was previously Curator of Near Eastern Art at the Smithsonian Institutions Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art (1984-90) where he organized, among other exhibitions, Timur and Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century (1989) and A Jewelers Eye: Islamic Arts of the Book From the Vever Collection (1988).