Foundation

Events

AAN Foundation provides support for Shahzia Sikander's exhibition 'Havah.......to breathe, air life' in Madison Square Park, New York City.

January 17 - July 17, 2023

“Havah……to breathe, air, life”

Havah…explores the complexities of women’s relationships to law and justice. The project will be on view in Madison Square Park and on the rooftop of the Appellate Division Courthouse across the street. Shahzia’s inspiring exhibition in the park will include a monumental sculpture of a female figure, a video animation, and an augmented reality component. A second sculpture will be installed on the courthouse rooftop, becoming the first female figure to take a stand amongst a lineup of nine robed male lawgivers. Shahzia’s work on the 2017 Capital Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Martyrs galvanized her intense investigation of whose figure occupies our public spaces. Havah…is a bold and important response.

This project is a co-commission of Madison Square Park Conservancy and Public Art Houston. The commission will open on the 17th of January!

The AAN Foundation & Shahzia Sikander’s practice: The AAN Foundation has been supporting Shahzia Sikander’s practice for almost two decades. Our commitment to this pioneer of Indo-Persian Painting will continue as Sikander keeps breaking new ground in her art making and keep’s challenging norms of both narrative and form. The AAN Foundation, supported by the AAN Collection, is the custodian of one of the largest collections of Sikander’s work, including both paintings and animations including the seminal ‘Parallax’. In 2008, it supported her public art exhibition ‘Authority as Approximation’ at Para Site Art Space in Hong Kong. In 2016 the AAN Foundation was the Lead Sponsor for Sikander’s monumental exhibition ‘Apparatus of Power’ which exhibited over sixty three works of art including paintings and video installations at The Asia Society Museum and The Maritime Museum in Hong Kong. The AAN Foundation also provided support for the viewing of Parallax, her seminal three-channel video installation at the Lahore Biennale in 2018 as well as being the Central Sponsors for the inaugural Lahore Biennale.

Lecture and Workshops on Mughal Geometric Design and Architecture at the University of Hong Kong

06 March, 2018

Taimoor Khan Mumtaz, a renowned architect speaking on Mughal architecture at the Hong Kong University. He wil be speaking on Ebba Koch's case study on the architecture of the Taj Mahal. The event is a collaboration of the Consulate of Pakistan in Hong Kong as well as the Department of Architecture, Hong Kong University. Along with the lecture, Mr Mumtaz will also be conducting workshops with students at Hong Kong University.

AAN Foundation supports the Salima Hashmi Archive at Asia Art Archive

01 March, 2018

The AAN Foundation is pleased to support the Asia Art Archive in preserving the archive of Salima Hashmi. Link to the archive given below!

Salima Hashmi is a Lahore-based artist, curator, educator, and organiser. Her writings offer critical insights on the struggles of female artists in Pakistan, and how their practices pushed social boundaries and expectations.

The pilot phase of the Salima Hashmi Archive offers a selection of her writing since 1981, as well as archival materials she collected throughout her career. The ephemera available in this phase include materials from the 1950s and 1960s: leaflets; exhibition catalogues; and invitation cards to plays, musical performances, and other cultural events. These rare materials were collected by Hashmi, who was an active presence at various activities held in Alhamra Arts Council (previously known as Pakistan Art Council Lahore). Also included are oral history interviews with Hashmi, conducted by AAA Project Researcher Samina Iqbal, that contextualise the archive through Hashmi’s experiences of studying and practicing art, as well as teaching and eventually heading the National College of Arts as Principal.

With support from the AAN Foundation, Asia Art Archive will begin working on the next phase of Salima Hashmi’s archive in 2018, focusing on the exhibition histories of the Rohtas Gallery (1981–2004) in Islamabad, where Hashmi co-curated exhibitions with the architect Naeem Pasha for over two decades. A working list of the Rohtas Gallery’s exhibitions is also available as part of the Salima Hashmi Archive. Photo Credits: Asia Art Archive

Rooms Afloat - A Sound Installation by Fazal Rizvi - An AAN Foundation Project

January 27 - February 03, 2018

The AAN Foundation is pleased to announce this site specific audio project 'Tairtsay Kamray/Rooms Afloat' accompanying Fazal Rizvi's exhibition 'The Fleet'. The tour will unravel on boats upon the sea! This project has been curated by Aziz Sohail!

Scroll - Projects on Paper: An on-going project of the AAN Foundation

04 December, 2016

The notion of the exhibition without walls or using paper as an alternative space for the arts had been widely practiced in the 60s and the 70s.

Closer to home and pre-dating that, Indo-Persian miniature paintings were usually bound in the form of an album for personal enjoyment. Therefore, these particular exhibitions were realised in the form of albums in the hand of the viewer. While in other parts of Asia such as China, art was collected in the form of scrolls. When a landscape or a calligraphic text was meant to be pored over, the scroll was unravelled slowly to view the said work. The object of the work of art was not in the display, but in the private deliberation.

The AAN Foundation is pleased to be supporting Scroll: A Project on Paper which has been conceived and will be curated by the fabulous Aziz Sohail. The idea will be to engage with the greater artistic discourse in the country and beyond, and as an intersection for works of art, texts and ideas that are not confined by brick and mortar. These projects will manifest themselves in the form of an exhibition, a museum, a lab, a forum or a platform on paper.

Part I will be launched to push the discourse of 'How We Mark The Land' further and artists have created new works of arts for the 'exhibition' on paper. In the process of The Scroll we hope to flatten the engagement with all art forms and the visual arts in particular

The Scroll - Projects on Paper is Exhibited at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art, Cape Town.

19 November 2016 - 19 January 2017

The Scroll: An AAN Foundation Project is part of the exhibition 'Publishing Against The Grain' at Zeitz MOCAA, Museum of Contemporary African Art in Capetown! The project was curated by Aziz Sohail

The exhibition reveals how the material and discursive activities of nineteen core projects respond to intersecting subjects such as contemporary aesthetics, diaspora, sex and gender, gentrification, race, language, and ...art history. This exhibition highlights the current state of publishing and art criticism as it actively exists in small journals, experimental publications, websites, and radio, as well as other innovative forms.
Publishing Against the Grain is an exhibition organised and produced byiCI (Independent Curators International), New York, and initiated by ICI’s Alaina Claire Feldman, Becky Nahom and Sanna Almajedi. The presentation at Zeitz MOCAA has been organised by Sven Christian, the Adriane Iann Assistant Curator of Books and Works on Paper (Zeitz MOCAA).

Apparatus of Power, A Solo Exhibition by Shahzia Sikander – Asia Society Hong Kong Centre

March 16 - July 09, 2016

Lead sponsor: AAN Foundation This body of work also specifically explores Hong Kong’s colonial complexity, both historical and current. The exhibition which is installed within the Chantal Miller Gallery of Asia Society Hong Kong Center, Shahzia Sikander: Apparatus of Power includes drawings on paper and large-scale animations. The exhibition’s title refers to the potential of an image to communicate in multiple contexts, forms, and formats.

Shahzia Sikander’s video installation Parallax which was created and shown at The Sharjah Biennale in 2013 is being exhibited as well as the animation the Last Post. Three-channel color animation with sound, 15 min and 30 sec Music by Du Yun Music by Du Yun © Shahzia Sikander. Courtesy of Sikander Studio

Harrappan Connections in Collaboration with the Lahore Museum

January 10 - February 10, 2016

The Harrapan Connections was a traveling and educational component of the Inheriting Harrappa exhibition at the Lahore Museum. UNESCO and the IFPC were partners for this show. The AAN Foundation supported the component of this exhibition in Karachi