Para Site Art Space is honored to present , a retrospective of time-based video works by acclaimed artist . For her first solo presentation in China, five video works have been selected, spanning from 2003 to 2008, representing an in-depth study on her research on moving image. The exhibition includes seminal works like (2003), which was shown in exhibition, and it also comprises her film, the video-essay (2008).
depicts a Pakistani Army military brass band, and examines this formation as a political device. The work stresses the interaction of a superimposed text and the accompanying soundtrack. On the meaning of this film, cultural critic explains that “In her choice of Pakistani Army Bands as a subject for visual capture and representation, triggers deep resonances from within the tradition of miniature painting. The corporeal language, rhythm, space-making and compositional effects that she discovers and creates in film appear rooted in courtly spectacles as well as in their painterly representation, in various and later styles.” This work was premiered in 2009 in New York.
The work of is often seen as a critique and a deconstruction of the traditional imagery of . Aside from her drawings on paper, her video works also consist of interferences that give rise to other readings, where the combination of musical composition and images submerges us in an all-encompassing experience.
On this occasion the venue has been transformed into a black box screening gallery to comply with the semantics and standards of the moving image inside the gallery space. The exhibition allows us to delve into one aspect of artistic praxis that constitutes a departure from her seminal miniature drawings, and unveils to us the critical rigor of her approach to other media.
