Transformation as an Artistic Strategy in the Work of the…

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_article_15218
dc.title	Transformation as an Artistic Strategy in the Work of the Artist Anwar Saeed
dc.contributor.author	Wille Simone
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Venice University Press, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.type	Research Article
dc.language.iso	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/venezia-arti/2023/1/transformation-as-an-artistic-strategy-in-the-work/
dc.description.abstract	The Pakistani artist Anwar Saeed is best known for his collages, colour-intensive paintings and works of different printing techniques which often explore masculinity and probe the controversial issue of same-sex desire in Muslim South Asia. He is therefore no stranger to self-censorship. Saeed has often had to alter his works so that they could be shown in Pakistan, and has generally learned to tell stories in order to survive. These stories had to be camouflaged, so the motif of the mask along with the complex othering of the self through the staging of animal-human relations entered his artistic iconography and came to play an important role in paintings, collages, drawings, prints and photographs. Many of these works suggest the artist’s concern with conflict between religious and social expectations and gender roles, but they also make a connection with cultural and political identity formation in a country with a short, but very conflicted, history.
dc.relation.ispartof	Venezia Arti
dc.relation.ispartof	Vol. 32 \| December 2023
dc.issued	2023-12-20
dc.dateAccepted	2023-10-20
dc.dateSubmitted	2023-09-14
dc.identifier.issn
dc.identifier.eissn	2385-2720
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/VA/2385-2720/2023/01/010
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Contemporary Art
dc.subject	Global Art
dc.subject	Pakistani Art
dc.subject	Postwar Print Art
dc.subject	South Asian Art
dc.subject	Transnational Art

Research Article
open access peer reviewed

Transformation as an Artistic Strategy in the Work of the Artist Anwar Saeed

Simone Wille University of Innsbruck, Austria

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abstract

The Pakistani artist Anwar Saeed is best known for his collages, colour-intensive paintings and works of different printing techniques which often explore masculinity and probe the controversial issue of same-sex desire in Muslim South Asia. He is therefore no stranger to self-censorship. Saeed has often had to alter his works so that they could be shown in Pakistan, and has generally learned to tell stories in order to survive. These stories had to be camouflaged, so the motif of the mask along with the complex othering of the self through the staging of animal-human relations entered his artistic iconography and came to play an important role in paintings, collages, drawings, prints and photographs. Many of these works suggest the artist’s concern with conflict between religious and social expectations and gender roles, but they also make a connection with cultural and political identity formation in a country with a short, but very conflicted, history.

Published

Dec. 20, 2023

Accepted

Oct. 20, 2023

Submitted

Sept. 14, 2023

Language

Keywords: Contemporary Art • South Asian Art • Postwar Print Art • Pakistani Art • Global Art • Transnational Art

permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/VA/2385-2720/2023/01/010

Copyright: © 2023 Simone Wille. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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