Pacific Perspectives: Virginia Whiles on "Tradition and Subversion in Pakistani Contemporary Art" November 7, 2006

Pacific Perspectives: Virginia Whiles on "Tradition and Subversion in Pakistani Contemporary Art" November 7

November 7, 7:30pm
San Francisco Art Institute, Studio 18
800 Chestnut Street

Pacific Perspectives

Pacific Perspectives is a key element of the new SFAI Exhibitions and Public Programs Department. This program will examine the dynamic scene of creation across the Pacific Rim ranging from the Americas to Asia, and will bring new attention to San Francisco and its unique geographic, historic, and cultural position.

Lecture

"Miniature Manoeuvres: Tradition and Subversion in Pakistani Contemporary Art"

This lecture addresses the issues treated by the contemporary miniatures: addressing problems of militarism, corruption, fundamentalism but above all the extraordinary gender shift taking place amongst the practitioners: now whom the majority of are female. These miniatures also provide a rich terrain for investigating the ongoing orientalism underlying the power games of the global artworld/market.

Virginia Whiles will also lead a tour of the exhibition Karkhana: A Contemporary Collaboration on November 2nd. This exhibition runs through November 5 at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum.

Biography

Virginia Whiles is an historian, critic, curator, and lecturer at Chelsea College of Art. Whiles has curated exhibitions of contemporary miniatures internationally, including a survey show at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan, 2004-2005. She has just completed her PhD on the contemporary miniature practice from an anthropological perspective at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies

Official Website: http://www.sfai.edu