Naiza Khan: Karachi Elegies is organized by the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University and curated by Karin Zitzewitz, MSU Assistant Professor of Art History and Visual Culture. Support for this exhibition is provided by Dipti and Rakesh Mathur. Additional funding is provided by the Asian Studies Center at Michigan State University; the American Institute of Pakistan Studies; and the MSU Broad’s general exhibitions fund.
About the Exhibition
Pakistani artist Naiza Khan captures the experience of living and working in Karachi, where everyday life has been disrupted by natural disaster, migration to the city, and political violence. For her first solo museum exhibition in the United States, Khan will show oil paintings, sculpture, and video works that map the tragic geography of violence in Karachi and place the human figure within it. Khan uses the term “disrupted geography” to describe her oil paintings and video works, in which she layers striking images and words to create a dream-like topography. In her landscape paintings, ruined structures are the lone traces of life. Her steel sculptures of lingerie armor similarly refer to the human figure without actually representing it, but are evocative of both delicacy and strength. In artworks of extraordinary beauty, Khan’s work provides a complex and sensitive window onto life in one of the world’s most troubled cities.
Images
