RASHID RANA | I LOVE MINIATURES

Auction Closed

September 29, 03:32 PM GMT

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

PROPERTY OF A REPUTED INTERNATIONAL COLLECTOR

RASHID RANA

b. 1968

I LOVE MINIATURES

Editioned, titled, signed and dated “20/20 I Love Miniatures Rashid Rana, 2002” on reverse of board

Digital C-print

Edition 20 of 20

35 x 25 cm. (13 ¾ x 9 ⅞ in.)

Executed in 2002

This work is editioned, titled, signed and dated on reverse of board "20/20 I Love Miniatures Rashid Rana, 2002." Since 2007, all photo works of Rashid Rana are printed using archival methods and mounted as a DIASEC process. This lot predates that. The artist's studio is committed to help replace previously produced prints with the DIASEC process, if a client is willing to bear the costs (approximately 202 euros). The new version will be unsigned.

Acquired from Nature Morte Gallery, New Delhi

Acquired from the above

P. Nagy, Q. Mirza, K. Singh and A. Madani, Rashid Rana: Identical Views, Exhibition Catalogue, New Delhi, Nature Morte; Mumbai, Chatterjee & Lal; New York, Bose Pacia, 2004-2005, pp. 27-28, illustration pp. 13-14 (another from the edition)

Q. Mirza et. al, Rashid Rana, Chatterjee and Lal, Chemould Prescott Road, Pragati Offset Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad, 2010, illustration pp. 32-33 (another from the edition)

“Why is it particularly artists of non-western origins who are supposed to be primarily concerned with their geographical location and past? A European artist born and raised in Amsterdam is not expected to produce works that visually resemble those of Rembrandt or Van Gogh but the same expectation of subscription to tradition is present for an artist from Pakistan or other regions that were colonized in the past. I Love Miniatures is a critique of this burden… I have used popular everyday imagery such as billboards and advertisements, to construct a whole that resembles the portrait of a Mughal monarch in the style of miniature painting. The aim is to challenge ideas of authenticity and relevance as attributed to miniature painting, thereby underscoring how value for an imagined past is artificially constructed. The macro view shows them what they expect from me as an artist from South Asia and through that I show them what is there in my immediate surroundings.” (Rashid Rana, from correspondence with the Artist’s Studio, September 2020)

Rashid Rana is one of South Asia’s most acclaimed contemporary artists. He studied at the National College of Arts in Lahore, where he was a student of Zahoor-ul-Akhlaq, the pioneer of contemporary miniature painting. Rana is renowned for his clever reworking of popular imagery: in the current lot, the apparently pixelated Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan is, in fact, formed not of pixels but hundreds of individual images of Lahore billboards. The work powerfully critiques a bias within the art world, whereby non-western artists are expected to produce artworks in accord with the traditional art forms of their native country.

An edition of I love miniatures is in the collection of the British Museum and in 2015 was shown in the exhibition, ‘The Treasures of the World from British Museum’, at the National Museum of Singapore.