{
"data": {
"id": 438797,
"accession_number": "2021.103",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Empire Follows Art: States of Agitation 11, 2020. Shahzia Sikander (Pakistani American, b. 1969). Color digital printing, watercolor, and gouache on wasli paper; sheet: 40.6 x 30.5 cm (16 x 12 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund, 2021.103, \u00a9 Shahzia Sikander, courtesy of the artist and Sean Kelly, New York / Los Angeles",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Empire Follows Art: States of Agitation 11",
"creation_date": "2020",
"creation_date_earliest": 2020,
"creation_date_latest": 2020,
"artists_tags": [
"Asian American",
"female"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "color digital printing, watercolor, and gouache on wasli paper",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - American 21st Century",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "Sheet: 40.6 x 30.5 cm (16 x 12 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.406,
"height_inch": 16,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.305,
"width_inch": 12,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "on verso, illegible inscription in pencil",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 541557,
"title": "New Narratives: Contemporary Works on Paper",
"description": "New Narratives: Contemporary Works on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 19, 2023-April 14, 2024).",
"opening_date": "2023-11-19T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 665435,
"title": "Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior",
"description": "Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 14-June 8, 2025).",
"opening_date": "2025-02-14T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Shazia Sikander: Weeping Willows, Liquid Tongues. Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, NY (November 5 \u2013 December 19, 2020).",
"opening_date": "2020-12-19T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "2020-2021",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "2021-",
"sortorder": 3
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Shazia Sikander has described the theme of the series to which this drawing belongs as \u201ca state of struggle, of being caught variously between monetizing worlds, vocabularies, competing cultures, and histories.\u201d",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "\u201cMy work embraces uncertainty and flux,\u201d explains Shahzia Sikander. In Empire Follows Art, as Sikander attempts to harness the unpredictable properties of watercolor and gouache paint, she develops new ideas, forms, and characters, some of which have become enduring motifs in her work. A figure in profile, emerging from a lush pool of paint, refers to Buraq, the mythic creature (part human, part animal) from Islamic tradition, who transports the Prophet Muhammed during his Mi\u2019raj journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and back in a single evening. The multiple heads at the top of the page conjure Vishvarupa, an embodiment of Vishnu, a Hindu deity. Such incongruous juxtapositions, pervasive throughout Sikander\u2019s work, evoke deep-seated histories in which fraught cultural and belief systems are combined.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117246721"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Peters, Emily J. \"New Narratives: Contemporary works on paper emphasize storytelling.\u201d Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 63, no. 4 (2023): 4-7.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 7; Mentioned: P. 4, 6",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2023-04/page/4/mode/2up"
},
{
"citation": "Liebert, Emily. \"From Venice to Cleveland. Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior at the Biennale.\u201d Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 64, no. 1 (2024): 26-27.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 27; Mentioned: P. 26-27",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM-2024-01/page/26/mode/2up"
},
{
"citation": "Rosenfeld, Jason, Shahzia Sikander, and Barry Schwabsky. Shahzia Sikander. London: Lund Humphries, 2025.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 123; Reproduced: p. 119, no. 101",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2021.103",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 438797,
"creators": [
{
"id": 54812,
"description": "Shahzia Sikander (Pakistani American, b. 1969)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1969",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "2021-06-07T00:00:00-04:00",
"sortable_date": 2020,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "2020",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-09-22 12:35:55.329000"
}
}