SEHER SHAH | JIHAD POP (SET OF TWELVE PRINTS)

Private Corporate Collection, London

Sotheby's New York, 10 September 2012, lot 94

Exhibition catalogue, Jihad Pop, Bose Pacia, New York, 2008, illustration unpaginated (another from the edition)

Asal Collection, Asal Partners Limited, Cayman Islands, 2009, thumbnail illustration pl. 326, p. 136

Seher Shah received her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1998. Shah has worked and lived across the world including the US, UK. Belgium, Pakistan and India.

Her work is thus flavored with myriad multicultural influences informed by the nostalgia of these different places. Coming from an architectural background, she explores spaces and landscapes to create work across a variety of mediums including drawing, printmaking and sculpture.

Jihad Pop was the title of her first solo exhibition at Bose Pacia in New York. ‘Shah’s black and white prints and drawings explore the dimensions and incarnations of the geometry of the Cube with its multiple associations and connections within the Islamic cultural collective…In negotiating these various permutations of the cube Shah investigates the possible multiplicities of meaning through personal memory. The title of this body of work, Jihad Pop, speaks to the multifarious nature of nostalgic imagery. Few words are loaded with more contemporary significance than both jihad and pop. "Jihad," which represents the desire for spiritual self-perfection, is a term that undoubtedly causes much dissonance in the minds of those for whom the current pejorativity of the word disrupts the personal relevance of self-perfection. Likewise, "Pop," can be seen as related to the obsession with popular culture, mass capitalism, or even a sharp sound or abrupt movement, especially in tandem with "Jihad." Working through the combinations of these words begins to set the stage for the spaces created in Shah's drawings which range from very small and intimate prints to large, encompassing drawings.’ (http://www.bosepacia.com/exhibitions/2008-01-11_seher-shah/press-release/)

Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Brooklyn Museum; Queens Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Schaffhausen, Switzerland; Devi Art Foundation, Delhi; Deutsche Bank Art Contemporary; the Progressive Art collection, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Foundation, Vienna, Austria amongst others.