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Bani Abidi

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Pakistani artist (born 1971)

Bani Abidi
Born1971 (age 52–53)
Karachi, Pakistan
NationalityPakistani
Known forVideo, Photography & Drawing
Websitewww.baniabidi.com

Bani Abidi (born 1971) is a Pakistani artist working with video, photography and drawing. She studied visual arts at the National College of Arts in Lahore and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2011, she was invited for the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin program, and since then has been residing in Berlin.

Early life and education

Abidi was born in Karachi, the capital of Pakistani province of Sindh, in 1971. She has lived in New Delhi and Karachi, and currently resides in Berlin. In 1994, she chose to study painting and printmaking, earning a Bachelor of Arts from the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan. From 1997 she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, completing a master's degree in 1999.

While attending the Art Institute, she developed a profound interest in cinematography that led to her engagement with video as a medium. This is when performance and photography were incorporated in her creative process. These mediums have provided her with a powerful tool to address the problems of nationalism, specifically those surrounding the Indo-Pakistani conflicts and the violent legacy of the 1947 partition which divided the two countries. The uneven representation of these defining moments in the mass media was also featured in her works. She mainly focused upon how these issues affected everyday lives and individual experiences.

Artistic practice

Early works

The subject of Abidi's earliest venture was a trilogy of humorous video diptychs that put spotlight on the ongoing hostility between Pakistan and India. She played the role of both an Indian woman and a Pakistani woman in Mangoes (1999), where they reminisce about the old times while eating mangoes. Their camaraderie is gradually replaced by conflict as nationalism, about the variety and quality of mangoes native to each country, hampers the discussion in progress. On the similar lines, her work The News (2001) depicts the news anchors reporting the same international incident from their respective national perspectives. The conventions of costumes and the languages depicting each of the nations are precise. Even though these videos showcase the visual differences, the fact that Abidi herself plays both the roles puts emphasis on the cultural similarities between the two nations. It comes across as a visualization of the term “the nearness of difference” put forth by the scholar Homi Bhabha.

These early works, infused with humor and irony, highlights ways in which nationalism is enacted, reinforced and often subverted in everyday life. This was a theme that Abidi returned to in her subsequent videos. Applying a keen ethnographic eye to elements of Pakistani culture and politics, dialogues and a conventional narrative are often absent in her pieces. Her video works contain audio-visual footage put together in a striking fashion that makes the fictional narrative appears life-like. The film-making gaze of the artist offers a close-up view of a range of experiences of waiting wherein viewers can immerse themselves. It is through this experience of waiting that clear social hierarchies are visually established.

In addition to creating videos, Abidi also works with photography, digital imaging, and installations. Her photographic series Karachi (2009), is based in the multi-religious city where the artist grew up. During the holy month of Ramadan, the images were shot on the deserted streets of the city after sundown. When the Muslim masses retired indoors to end the day’s fast, Abidi staged scenarios that portrayed members of Pakistan’s religious minorities – Hindus, Christians and Zoroastrians. They emerged into the twilight to briefly claim some space in a public sphere that is quite hostile to religious differences. It is presented to viewers as a problem of perception, subtly questioning the inability of Pakistan's political vision to guarantee equal rights for all its citizens, regardless of religion.

Recent works

The threshold between the security of private life and the increasingly violent & unpredictable public space in contemporary Pakistan is a recurring recent interest for Abidi. Her more recent works builds upon her interests in satirizing bureaucracy, masculinity and patriotism. This allowed for poignantly subversive discourses to emerge even more than before. In her video work An Unforeseen Situation (2015), Abidi relates to a series of state-run competitions, organized by the Ministry of Sport in the Pakistani region of Punjab in 2014. According to reports, Pakistan broke several world records during these mass events. The artist used this as an opportunity to tell her own version of such an event – a failed competition for the greatest mass singing of the national anthem. In this way she unmasks the absurdity of such interactions between state-run staging and civilian performance.

Notable exhibitions and collections

Solo exhibitions

Bani’s work has been a part of solo exhibitions at Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (2019); Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2019); Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2017); Kunsthaus Hamburg (2016); Gandhara Art Space, Karachi (2016); Dallas Contemporary, US (2015); Kunstverein Arnsberg, Germany (2014); Experimenter Gallery, Kolkata (2012) and Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2011) among many others.

Group exhibitions

Abidi's creations have also been featured in the group exhibitions at Lahore Biennale (2018); Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Germany (2017); Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delhi (2016); Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, UK (2016); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2015); Latvia Centre for Contemporary Art, Riga (2015); Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (2014); 8th Berlin Biennale (2014); Guggenheim Museum, New York (2013); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2012); Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2012); 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012); dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany (2012); Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi (2012); ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany (2011); 10th Lyon Biennale, France (2009); 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008); Singapore Biennale (2006) and Asia Society, New York (2006) being some of them.

Collections

Abidi’s work is a part of the collections at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; British Museum, London; Tate Modern, London; Burger Collection, Hong Kong; Devi Arts Foundation, Gurugram, India and Sharjah Art Foundation to name a few.

She has been an artist-in-residence at DAAD Berliner Kunstlerprogram, Berlin (2011); Fukuoka Artist Exchange Program, Japan (2005); KHOJ International Artists Residency, New Delhi (2001) and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, US (2000). She was awarded a Sharjah Art Foundation Production Programme grant in 2010.

References

  1. "Bani Abidi – Overview". Experimenter. Retrieved 8 December 2021.
  2. "Bani Abidi". staedelschule. Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  3. Abidi, B. ‘Bani Abidi’s CV’ at Bani Abidi’s personal website: http://www.baniabidi.com/short%20bio.html Archived 14 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine and http://www.baniabidi.com/CV.pdf Archived 17 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Whiles, V. (2008). Bani Abidi. Art Monthly, (315), 18-19.
  5. Christov-Bakargiev, C. ‘Bani Abidi’ at dOCUMENTA (13) : http://d13.documenta.de/#/participants/participants/bani-abidi/ Archived 2015-03-06 at the Wayback Machine
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  7. "Artist Biography – Bani Abidi". Australia: National Gallery of Victoria. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
  8. ^ Guggenheim.org. (n.d.). Collection Online | Bani Abidi – Guggenheim Museum. Available at: http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/11675 Archived 28 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine .
  9. ^ "The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation". The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  10. ^ "ArtAsiaPacific: Bani Abidi". artasiapacific.com. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  11. ^ "Bani Abidi: The Last Laugh". Open The Magazine. 9 September 2019. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
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  14. Festspiele, Berliner. "Bani Abidi – Gropius Bau". www.berlinerfestspiele.de. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
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  19. "Bani Abidi at Kunstverein Arnsberg". www.kunstverein-arnsberg.de. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  20. "Bani Abidi | Then It Was Moulded Anew | 5 December 2012 – 5 January 2013 – Overview". Experimenter. Retrieved 8 December 2021.
  21. "Section Yellow :: BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art". baltic.art. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  22. "Bani Abidi – LB 01". Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  23. "Enactments and each passing day". Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. 14 November 2016. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  24. "Art From Elsewhere | Bristol Museum & Art Gallery". Bristol Museums. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  25. "Scenes for a New Heritage: Contemporary Art from the Collection | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  26. "The Garden of Ideas: Contemporary Art from Pakistan: Sep 18, 2014 – Jan 18, 2015". Aga Khan Museum. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  27. "Bani Abidi – participants – Berlin Biennale". www.berlinbiennale.de. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  28. "Bani Abidi". Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2018. 16 February 2013. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  29. "Bani Abidi at dOCUMENTA (13)". State of the Art. 4 August 2012. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  30. "Bani Abidi | ZKM". zkm.de. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  31. "Bani Abidi. Biennale de Lyon 2009". universes.art. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  32. "Bani Abidi | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  33. "Collections Online | British Museum". www.britishmuseum.org. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  34. Tate. "Bani Abidi born 1971". Tate. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  35. "Bani Abidi". BURGER Collection. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  36. "people – Sharjah Art Foundation". sharjahart.org. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
  37. "第5回福岡アジア美術トリエンナーレ2014 | The 5th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale". 第5回福岡アジア美術トリエンナーレ2014 | The 5th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (in Japanese). Retrieved 8 December 2021.
  38. "Pilot Residency 2001 « KHOJ". Retrieved 8 December 2021.
  39. "programme – Sharjah Art Foundation". sharjahart.org. Retrieved 7 December 2021.

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