Shahzia Sikander—named one of Artsy’s most influential artists of 2024—is showcasing a major exhibition across two premier Ohio Museums: the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) and the Cincinnati Art Museum (CAM). The mid-career survey, titled “Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior,” features nearly 100 artworks spanning 35 years. These shows will run concurrently—at CMA through June 8th and at CAM through May 4th.
Sikander first presented “Collective Behavior” during the 2024 Venice Biennale at a collateral exhibition at Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel. Now, this exhibition has been split into two shows, both in Ohio. The show features her breakthrough paintings illustrating daily lives in a condensed domestic landscape. This work established her as the founder of the “neo-miniature” movement in Pakistan. This style revived aesthetic traditions and miniature paintings popular during the Mughal era from the 16th to 19th centuries.
“‘Collective Behavior’ proposes kinship systems between experience, consciousness, race, and culture,” said Sikander. “The works in this exhibition address many themes close to my heart, including centering women’s narratives among uneven power relations and ongoing legacies of colonialism. Taking a global feminist perspective, I explore gender and body politics, examining the female form and feminine presence in art, religion, and society.”
The exhibition at CAM spans the entirety of the artist’s three-decade career. Curated by Ainsley M. Cameron, the show categorizes the artist’s work into the major themes the artist has explored over her decades-long career. Meanwhile, at CMA, Sikander’s contemporary works are shown alongside historical South Asian pieces from the museum’s collection.
“For more than three decades, Sikander has been animating South Asian visual histories through a contemporary perspective,” said Emily Liebert, who curated the show at CMA. “Her work reimagines the past for our present moment, proposing new and deeply relevant narratives that cross time and place, helping to see with fresh eyes the world we inhabit.”
After receiving her MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1995, Sikander has presented her work with Pilar Corrias, and Sean Kelly Gallery, both of which represent the artist. Her work has also been the subject of solo presentations at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, among others.
