hamra abbas

Cities

hamra — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 06:13:34 +0000

Hamra Abbas: Cities
Green Cardamom, London
Private View, Thursday September 8th, 2011
Exhibition continues till October 21st, 2011

Sympathy for the Devil

hamra — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 09:28:43 +0000

Vanhaerents Art Collection, Sympathy for the Devil, Brussels
April 30th, 2011-November 30th, 2013

Power of Doubt

hamra — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 08:06:39 +0000

PHotoEspaña 2011, Power of Doubt curated by Hou Hanru
Museo Colecciones ICO, Madrid
June 2nd-September 11th, 2011

Interview Power of doubt

hamra — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 09:16:00 +0000

Interview with Hamra Abbas: “All works involve some degree of complication”

ACAP 2011

hamra — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:27:52 +0000

Hamra Abbas | 2011 Winner

About the Abraaj Capital Art Prize:

Announced in 2008, at US$ 1 million in disbursements, it is the world’s most generous art

prize. Annually it rewards chosen artists from the MENASA region on the basis of a

proposal rather than completed works-of-art. The winning artists then go on to create the

works.

Talk @ Asia Society/CAMH

hamra — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 01:46:58 +0000

Hamra Abbas: Artist Talk organized by Asia Society, Houston
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
Tuesday, June 29, 2010 – 7 pm

Hamra Abbas @ Harvard University

hamra — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:43:16 +0000

Hamra Abbas | The Second Annual Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program Conference

Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
April 17th-18th, 2010

Talk @ ROM 2

hamra — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:13:37 +0000

Hamra Abbas: An Intimate Artist’s Talk
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, ON
Friday, March 19, 2010 – 7 pm

Beyond the Page

hamra — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:45:24 +0000

Beyond the Page: The Miniature as Attitude in Contemporary Art from Pakistan
Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, CA
February 18, 2010 – June 27, 2010

Beyond the page_review

hamra — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:10:07 +0000

Exhibition of Contemporary Art from Pakistan to Open at Pacific Asia Museum

Love Yourself @ San Francisco Art Institute, CA

hamra — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:15:07 +0000

EVERYDAY MIRACLES (EXTENDED)
San Francisco Art Institute, CA
October 1, 2009 – January 30, 2010

Paradise Bath @ RedCat, LA

hamra — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:45:44 +0000

EVERYDAY MIRACLES (EXTENDED)
RedCat, Los Angeles, CA
Guest curated by Hou Hanru
November 22, 2009 – January 17, 2010

Ride 2 @ Asia Society Museum, New York

hamra — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:13:06 +0000

Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan
Asia Society Museum, New York, NY
September 10, 2009 – January 3, 2010

Read @ Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

hamra — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:21:31 +0000

Hamra Abbas: Read
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
Institute for Contemporary Culture
Until March 28, 2010

ICC’s Read

hamra — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:58:01 +0000

ICC’s Read Provides Another Response to the ROM’s Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibition

Ride 2 @ Asia Society, NY

hamra — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:37:32 +0000

Contradictions Remain Vital to Pakistan and Its Art
by Randy Kennedy
The New York Times, September 2, 2009

Visiting Artist Lecture: Hamra Abbas

hamra — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:17:17 +0000

Visiting Artist Lecture: Hamra Abbas
Riley Seminar Room, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Work_Woman in Black

hamra — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:35:23 +0000

<< click thumbnail for slideshows
Woman in Black (2011). Comprised of three stained glass windows measuring three meters in height, Woman in Black depicts the iconic image of a fictional female super-heroine. To view the work the audience is invited to sit on pew-like benches, inside a darkened room reminiscent of a place of worship. Stained glass, as an art form, reached its height in the middle Ages. Like the illuminated manuscript, it was used to illustrate narratives of the Bible to a largely illiterate populace. Seen from inside a place of worship, such windows were deliberately intended to focus the attention of the worshipper on the sacred image by literally ‘blacking out’ contact with the outside world. The interplay of light and dark have often served as metaphors for good and evil and are deliberately employed by Abbas to accentuate the mysterious powers of the female figure, enshrined within the glass. Shown in the company of an army, brandishing swords, and decapitated fighters, the female figure is shown either under attack or quelling an act of violence. She is placed in the middle of a scene of conflict, suggestive of the worldly realities of contemporary society. Though Abbas uses traditional Indian miniature painting to depict the female figure, stylistic flourishes borne out of the stained glass process intercede. Such quirks register the overlap of traditions and skills within the work. Conceptualizing the belief that the message is found in the medium, a tenet that informs much religious art, Abbas playfully adapts an illuminated painting into an illuminated window, whose image by design, come and goes with the fading of the day. Sharmini Pereira

Work_Cityscapes 3

hamra — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 23:34:04 +0000

Cityscapes 3 (2011). It is not uncommon for artists and writers to take a particular city as their muse. Cities like Paris, Istanbul, Venice, Cairo, London and countless others have been the subject of literary reflections, charcoal drawings, oil and water paintings, fiction, and for a host of other purposes that range from the absurd to the sublime. In my work, instead of focusing on my home city, or any one city, I aim to develop an investigative project that views a number of cities from a nomadic perspective. Thus being in contrast from the position that attempts to speak as an insider, as has been the custom. Each Cityscapes attempts to reference a peculiar aspect of the city’s history, memory, or the subtext and that has its own story to tell. Cityscapes 3 was done in New York during the winter of 2010/11, and features life-casted heads of Peter, Pete, Tomi, Kleber and Terry.

Work_Su’ar

hamra — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:33:09 +0000

Su’ar (2011). The word su’ar is used both in Urdu (dialect) and Punjabi for boar. Boar is a repugnant animal in Islam whose meat is forbidden to Muslims. This is seen to be largely in line with all prophets prior to the Prophet Muhammad. The Quran and the tradition (Sunnah) of the Prophet categorically forbid its consumption on the basis that it is impure. Hence it is also used as a pejorative, and if the occasion permits, to be generously used as a hideous insult. As a result of this bias, the boar is seen as a creature that is the filthiest in entire animal kingdom. Due to this view the boar has become an image or motif for shamelessness and depravity of the worst kind. Anyone who is excessively greedy, lacking in hygiene, eats continuously, has no respect for any individual, sexually promiscuous (to the extent of incest) or devoid of any sensitivity may legitimately be called a su’ar. One must add here that it is beside the point if chickens, or for that matter, any other animal may be seen to indulge in the same habits as the boar. Irfan Moeen Khan