Anila Quayyum Agha at 9th edition of India Art Fair in February

PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

INDIA---The ninth edition of India Art Fair that is set to begin from February 2, will seek to promote both regional and global art, with an impressive line-up of Indian and international exhibitors. A tightly curated art affair, the India Art fair is touted as one of South Asia's biggest events for modern and contemporary art. With an aim to focus on showcasing the most critical contemporary art in South Asia, the fair will focus on galleries like Britto Arts Trust (Dhaka), Nepal Art Council (Kathmandu), Theertha International Artists Collective (Colombo) and Blueprint 12 (New Delhi). Pakistani-American contemporary artist Anila Quayyum Agha will be presenting her first major piece "All The Flowers Are For Me"- a sculptural installation which captures the identity, beauty, and femininity of her mother. [link]

Collector Spotlight: Disney-Britton passion for Anila Quayyum Agha

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

Ernest & Greg standing in their living room on Christmas Eve

This Fall, we debuted a new feature on our Alpha Omega Arts news blog, a Collector Spotlight highlighting our varied interests as collectors. In last night's Christmas Eve photo above, Ernest and Greg are holding a new work by Anila Quayyum Agha titled, "Moon Beam For My Love 1." This is only the second piece we've aquired by Agha (with the first being a more abstract work in 2014), but we've been fans since first being introduced to her work in 2013. Do you collect old masters, new masters, or even flea-market prints, we invite you to share your story too! (Begin here)

Indiana-based Anila Quayyum Agha returns to TINY V at Gallery 924

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

"Moon Beam For My Love 1" (2016) by Anila Quayyum Agha, 11"x11" Frame, 5 5/8"x5 5/8"  mixed media on paper. (Laser-cut patterns on paper with mylar and embroidery). Image courtesy of gallery

INDIANA---Anila Quayyum Agha returns to Gallery 924’s TINY exhibition, an annual celebration of artists and art collectors. This year's exhibition features over 200 central Indiana artists with more than 400 pieces of original art, all 6”x6”x6” or smaller. TINY brings together the largest number and most diverse group of professional artists in Indianapolis. The exhibition targets new art collectors with a diverse selection of artwork at low to moderate prices. Agha's contributions this year include two smaller works from her new "Weight of Gold" series. Gallery 924 at the Arts Council, 924 N. Pennsylvania St., Indianapolis; (317) 631-3301; indyarts.org

Delicate Bond of Steel is ongoing at Chatterjee & Lal till 24.

THE HINDU
By Riddhi Doshi

Anila Quayyum Agha’s ‘Hidden Diamond’

INDIA---An ongoing group show in the city features the creative expressions of South Asian artists from all over the world. The ongoing intriguing group show titled Delicate Bond of Steel is a result of the unique exchange between Chatterjee & Lal in Mumbai and Aicon Gallery in New York. Another highlight is Lahore-born, Vienna-based artist Anila Quayyum Agha’s ‘Hidden Diamond’. A large stainless steel powder-coated cube casts a beautiful shadow all around the space. “In her work, the cube in black is reminiscent of many things — robust, opaque, masculine and the Kabbah (building at the centre of Islam’s most sacred mosque). It could also just be minimalist and modernist art,” says the co-curator. [link]

ArtNet Asks: Anila Quayyum Agha on drawing inspiration from darkness

ARTNET NEWS

Anila Quayyum Agha, Alhambra Nights. Courtesy of Aicon Gallery.

NEW YORK---“Walking With My Mother’s Shadow,” the current exhibition by Pakistani-American artist and recent ArtPrize winner Anila Quayyum Agha, offers an unabashedly gorgeous and emotional experience to viewers. In her first major New York solo show, Agha explores love and loss through highly intricate and conceptually complex sculptures. Featuring delicate patterning, her work operates at the intersection of between differing cultures, people, and memories. Her current show, "Walking with my Mother’s Shadow,” closes November 27 in New York. [link]

RELIGIOUS ART | NEWS OF WEEK

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Ernest & Gregory Disney-Britton

Anila Quayyum Agha's "All the Flowers Are For Me - RED" (2016. Laser-cut stainless steel and blub, 60 x 60 x 60 in.

God is in the details of "Walking With My Mother's Shadow" by artist Anila Quayyum Agha, an intricately detailed exhibition that opened in New York City this week.  Her "Kaaba" is dark and dense but delicately patterned with copper beads. Her "Flowers Are Mine" cutouts are lacelike serenity, and her installations featuring 600-watt lights inside square and triangular cages cast dazzling patterns of intricate flowers across the gallery spaces. Using paper, embroidery, beads, mixed media, encaustic paint, and most recently steel, she weaves the geometric details of Islamic Art to create a new form of unity and order. Born in Pakistan, Agha was raised at the edges of Islamic life, and today she lives in Indiana where 72% identify as Christian. Her art reflects both her sense of religious alienation and inclusion. This week's art newsmaker is Anila Quayyum Agha for her first solo show in Manhattan.

Anila Quayyum Agha Takes Manhattan Walking in Her Mother's Shadow

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

Postcard for opening reception on Thursday, October 20 at Aicon Gallery

NEW YORK---Aicon Gallery presents "Walking with My Mother’s Shadow," the first major New York solo exhibition by Indiana-based artist Anila Quayyum Agha. In 2014, Anila’s now iconic sculptural installation Intersections was awarded the top awards at the ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids, MI, and was also voted the Alpha Omega Prize Artist of the Year. Last month, one of Agha's works was also offered by Christie's auction house. Her current work in this exhibition reflects on the complexities of love, loss, and gains; experienced by her over the past year. The exhibition opening tonight is Agha's first major solo exhibition in New York City and with Aicon Gallery.

Collector Spotlight: Muslim Artist's Conceptual Realism

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

"Untitled" by Anila Quayyum Agha. Ernest stands behind the small painting acquired in 2014.

Ernest Disney-Britton poses with “Untitled” (2014) by Anila Quayyum Agha, in his downtown Indianapolis home. Ernest, a gay Christian, and a  grantmaker in the arts is in a unique position as a collector: He and his husband regularly meet artists like Agha who have been impacted by religious alienation. While Agha's work clearly excludes most of the basic elements of realism that typically attracts the Disney-Brittons, but her ambiguous patterns still movingly reflect the hardships of "having lived on the boundaries".

Perception-Changers: Contemporary Artists From South Asia

CHRISTIES

"All the Flowers Are For Me (White)" by Anila Quayyum Agha (B. 1965). Estimate USD 6,000 - USD 8,000

NEW YORK---Christie's specialists Deepanjana Klein and Sheila Parekh-Blum look at key artists whose work is offered in our South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art sale on 14 September. The first is Lahore-born Anila Quayyum Agha, a female Muslim artist who examines the feeling of being trapped and blocked, having been barred from mosques and confined to certain cultural moulds. After relocating to America, travelling widely and taking specific inspiration from the Alhambra in Spain, Agha now translates the intricate Moorish motifs, symmetry and craftsmanship of the structures forbidden to her with a freedom of expression for all to witness. [link]

Anila Agha's ‘Intersections’ at Rice University illustrates exclusion

THE EGALITARIAN
By Ashura Bayyan

The Rice Gallery will display 'Intersections', a sculptural installation designed by Anila Quayyum Agha, until Dec. 6.

MICHIGAN---The Rice Gallery will display ‘Intersections’, a sculptural installation designed by Anila Quayyum Agha, until Dec. 6. It effectively manipulates the gallery space, engages the visitors and provides a window into the mind of the artist. Yet it lacks context, appropriates the best of Moorish art, and ultimately turns a social critique into a mere illustration of exclusion. Aghas’ project description suggest that her visit to the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain made her “reflect on her childhood in Lahore, Pakistan where culture dictated that women were excluded from the mosque.”  [link]

The powerful pull of Anila Agha's "Intersections"

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS 
 

Our favorite image from this year's ArtPrize Seven was of this adorable kid walking (crawling)  underneath last year's winner, "Intersections" by Anila Quayyum Agha. He is "not" actually underneath the six foot steel cube, but the angle certainly gives that illusion, and "Intersection" is very much about perspective and illusion. Through December 6, 2015, "Intersections" will also be on view at the Rice University Art Gallery in Houston, Texas. For more details, visit ricegallery.org.

ArtPrize winners: ‘Intersections” historic win not the end for Agha

WOODTV.COM

MICHIGAN—Although she went home with the largest amount of money ever awarded to one artist in a single ArtPrize competition, Anila Quayyum Agha is continuing her career in teaching. Shortly after taking down “Intersections” last October, the GRAM moved the piece to its third floor Wege Gallery, where it remained on display until late January. “Intersections” is expected to remain at the Dallas Museum of Art until Aug. 23. The public relations manager for ArtPrize tells 24 Hour News 8 that they will announce the next stop for “Intersections” by early September. [link]

Third Edition of Istanbul Art Fair opens September 4-6, 2015

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

Anila Quayyum Agha's cube is being packed to ship from Indianapolis to Istanbul for September's art fair

TURKEY---Art International is dedicated to exhibitions of the work of contemporary artists, and this year that also includes Anila Quayyum Agha, the winner of Artprize 2014. Returning to the Haliç Congress Center in Istanbul, Art International is hosting the third edition of its hugely successful Istanbul Art International. Running between September 4 and 6, 2015, the art fair will bring together many of the world’s most exciting galleries and offer audiences access to modern and contemporary art from Turkey, Europe, the Middle East and the beyond.

Indiana's Center for Interfaith Hosts "Art — A Bridge Between Cultures"

THE ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Ernest Disney-Britton

Interior view of Christ Cathedral an Episcopal church in downtown Indianapolis

INDIANA---On Friday, the Center for Interfaith Cooperation will host a public dialogue, "Art - A Bridge Between Cultures" led by Faisal Al Juburi, Executive Director of Bridges of Understanding. This "free" spirited conversation will bring together experienced diplomats and artists, including Ambassador Cynthia Schneider, film director Ruba Nadda, Bronx educator Brandon Cardet Hernandez, and Herron School of Art and Design professor and Artprize winner, Anila Quayyum Agha. Together, with the audience, the group will explore how an artist’s cultural and religious background can help bridge understanding to shape public policy. The program takes place at on Friday, April 24, at 4:00 p.m. at Christ Cathedral in downtown Indianapolis at 125 Monument Circle.

ArtPrize Public Talk with Anila Quayyum Agha at the Indianapolis Museum of Art

THE ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Gregory Disney-Britton

Anila Quayyum Agha is pictured with her ArtPrize entry "Intersections" inside the Grand Rapids Art Museum Sunday, Oct. 5, 2014. (Cory Morse | MLive.com)

INDIANA---No one expected this. For the first time, one artist won both the public vote and juried Grand Prizes at the 2014 ArtPrize — Indianapolis artist Anila Quayyum Agha. This Wednesday, while the entry "Intersections" is on view in Dallas, Texas, the Indianapolis Arts Council Creative Renewal Arts Fellow will speak at the Indianapolis Museum of Art about her entry. "Intersections" is a 6.5 foot wooden cube made of laser-etched Islamic patterning illuminated from the interior. This public conversation with Agha also includes ArtPrize Director of Exhibitions, Kevin Buist.

Wednesday, April 22, 7:00 pm, The Toby Auditorum at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, 4000 Michigan Road, Indianapolis, IN | (317) 923-1331

RELIGIOUS ART | NEWS OF WEEK

THE ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Gregory Disney-Britton

We love religious art in all colors of the rainbow, but there's no denying we have a soft spot for blue. So when we read about the new research findings that blue has surpassed orange as the most popular color in art, we expected to showcase blue art today from an exhibit in Indianapolis. Blue favorites from the "Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship Retrospective" included Gordon Strain's "Don't Drink the Water" and Ben Johnson's "Visual Misperception." It was, however, the "orange" that "blew" us away, and that's why Anila Quayyum Agha's "Yellow Flash Orange" (above) is our NEWS OF WEEK.

Spain's Alhambra inspired Anila Agha's "Intersections" now at Dallas Contemporary

WALLPAPER 
By Ann Binlot

'Intersections', the latest installation piece by Anila Quayyum Agha, is now on show at Dallas Contemporary in Texas

TEXAS---About five years ago artist Anila Quayyum Agha visited the Alhambra, the Moorish palace and fortress in Granada, Spain built in 889 AD and expanded in the 11th century by emir Mohammed ben Al-Ahmar. Agha noticed how visitors responded to the beautiful, intricate Moorish patterns within the structure. 'I was fascinated by the awe that people were showing me on their faces and I thought, "I'd like to make this thing happen in the US,"' says Agha. What she created was 'Intersections', a large-scale shadow box comprised of Moorish patterns, suspended in the middle of a room. A light in the centre of the cube casts the patterns' shadows across the space. [link]

Dallas Contemporary: "Intersections" (Ends August 23, 2015); 161 Glass Street, Dallas, TX; (214)821- 2522; dallascontemporary.org

The subversive beauty of ArtPrize winner Anila Quayuum Agha

NUVO MAGAZINE
By Scott Shoger

INDIANA---"I won the ArtPrize the same week that Malala won the Nobel Prize," Anila Quayyum Agha says with a mix of pride and restraint, sitting across from this reporter at the kitchen table at her near-Eastside home. The walls are lined with work by her students — Agha is an associate professor of drawing at Herron; she earned tenure last year — alongside brushed metal wall pieces by Steve Prachyl, her engineer and fiancé, who's puttering around upstairs while consuming epic amounts of biscotti. One of the patterned cubes from her Intersections series hangs from the ceiling; she says she turns it on at night, that the shadow patterns the piece projects on the wall are soothing. [link]

Anila Agha is One of 10 Non-Western Contemporary Artists You Should Know

THE CULTURE TRIP
By C. A. Xuan Mai Ardia

Anila Quayyum Agha, ‘Intersections’, completed in 2013, laser-cut wood, single light bulb, 6.5 inches square cube. Installation view at Grand Rapids Art Museum, 2014 | Courtesy the artist

When thinking about the most important and influential non-Western artists, activist artist Ai Weiwei, the founder of Kaikai Kiki, Takashi Murakami and the ‘Queen of Polka Dots’ Yayoi Kusama, come to mind. But we tend to forget that there are others that deserve attention. Here’s our top 10 list of talented artists that have recently been awarded or shortlisted for some of the world’s most prestigious art prizes. Pakistani-born artist Anila Quayyum Agha is the winner of ArtPrize Award 2014 at the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan. Her winning work, titled Intersections, will be on view at GRAM until the end of January 2015. [link]

A Vision of Vibrancy: Artist Anila Qayyum Agha

STYLE: MODERN MUSLIM LIVING
By Merium Kazmi

Window Panes 2 (2006)

Born in Lahore, Pakistan, mixed media artist Anila Qayyum Agha draws on a culmination of experiences and cultures inculcated on her travels abroad. Anila’s work explores socio-cultural and gender-related issues within contemporary society. Using light and geometric designs which emulate patterns from the Alhambra, "Intersections," her latest piece, addresses women’s limited access to public spaces like mosques in predominantly Muslim countries. Having spoken with Merium Kazmi, she shares her views in her own words. [link]