hamra abbas

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_Cityscapes

hamra — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:50:23 +0000

<< click icon for slideshows
Cityscapes (2010) – seemingly an ordinary collection of touristy photographs of Istanbul, is made truly ordinary by removing one element that upon first glance generously gives away the city’s character and history. Each shot taken at the crack of dawn is embedded in a narrative that invites the audience to imagine waking up one morning to find the city changed overnight, literally. The work has been provoked by the recent minaret controversy in Europe, specifically Switzerland, where the city has unanimously called for a ban. Since a long time the minarets have been seen as symbols of political Islam in the Western imagination. In the Muslim world, minarets are part of the wider socio-cultural and aesthetic framework, standing above the winding alleys below, as they are, silent spectators to the bustling market places around, listening from the heights the daily conversations of the multitudes scattered on the ground. One may imagine that the minarets of Istanbul are its memory organs that allow the city to recognize itself at each sunrise.

Work_Fake Hands

hamra — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:17:57 +0000

Why do fake hands not clap (2010) consists of a dozen sets of the artist’s hands (plaster casts) in clapping motion, and disintegrating as a result. click for video

Work_Love Yourself

admin — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:25:07 +0000

Love Yourself (2009) is a continuation of the my Love Series. It is an installation of vibrating, toylike fighter jets, missiles, bombs, and bullets that, when switched on together with the neon works on the wall, create a vibrant installation of sound, movement, and light. The background neon reminds us that it’s “as good as the real thing”. The installation seeks to draw the attention of the viewer by a titillating display of colorful vibrating objects and blatant sexual innuendo—voyeurism giving way to a disturbing realization that these symbols of violence have been turned into pleasure objects.
video documentation by Kent Long

Work_Paradise Bath

admin — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 22:25:26 +0000

Paradise Bath (2009) is a set of 9 photographs, and an outcome of a performance I did during my recent visit to Thessaloniki, Greece. I was immediately drawn to the first Ottoman bath-house built there in 1444. Known as Bey Hammam or Paradise Bath, it stands in the city center as one of the main tourist destinations, as well as a symbol of the country’s Muslim past. This work takes the archetypal Orientalist image of a bath-scene to highlight issues of race, memory and power while referencing the ritual of washing/cleansing — symbolic in Islam and associated with regaining purity.

Work_Please do not step: Loss of a magnificent story

admin — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 15:35:12 +0000

Please do not step: Loss of a magnificent story (2009) is a site-specific work for Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In this work I use the method of storytelling (dastangoi) to tell a tale of loss and legacy, interlaced with elements of satire and humour. Borrowing from the idea of storytelling, Please do not step weaves together narratives within narratives.

Work_Zikr

admin — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:37:20 +0000

In this is a sign for those who reflect (2009) is inspired by my attendances at meditation sessions in Pakistan. Also called zikr, these were primarily meditations of a Sufi tradition. The movement of the walls, synchronizing with the sounds of breathing, recorded at these sessions, can be read or misread as an enclosing experience. My interest however, is to recreate elements of a sensory experience to imagine the power of synchronizing to one single idea or belief. In this is a sign for those who reflect is commissioned by 9th Sharjah Biennale. video documentation

White is the New Black

admin — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:39:25 +0000

White is the New Black (2009) | Digital prints

Work_Buffaloes in Combat

admin — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:40:18 +0000

Buffalos in Combat (2008) directly references a 16th C Mughual miniature painting depicting a pair of buffalo with horns locked in battle. The subject matter of this painting was popular during the reign of Emperor Akbar (1556-1605), where artists took pride in depicting vibrant and naturalistic scenes of courtly sports. Abbas renders this scene in life-size sculptural form, exploring the spectacle of death under state-sponsored systems of violence. Abbas uses historical images as a means to comment on the normalization of violence in the contemporary world, reflecting on state sanctioned terror and its relationship to underworld violence. Haema Sivanesan