Adeela Suleman
Adeela Suleman’s fascination with violence, especially deathly violence, which is always adjunct to radical religiosity, comes from a life time spent in Karachi, Pakistan. Days there are often spent worrying about a safe route to work and back, about a child or partner who is late and not answering their phone, about little things that would not be worry-worthy in another setting.
Suleman takes the moments, that she has lived through and that she has others live through, and turns them into art. Her shiny, beautifully crafted surfaces of stainless steel are made up of dead birds, rendered using traditional repousse technique. These birds represent the everyday, unsung victims of violence. They come together in flowing curtains, textured surfaces that drape walls, or create free-standing forms. These shimmering towers, in their adjacency and proportions, may remind the viewer of another set of two towers, and another September in New York.
Adeela Suleman
Darkest Hour 1, 2021
Steel cooking utensil, sink drain cover and small sauce bowl, layered with foam and cloth
18 x 10 x 15 in
Adeela Suleman
Darkest Hour 2, 2021
Steel cooking utensil, sink drain cover and small sauce bowl, layered with foam and cloth.
18 x 10 x 15 in
Visualization of Sculpture
Adeela Suleman
Rise 1 and 2, 2021
Stainless steel with hand-beaten repousse work
42 x 42 x 246 in
Adeela Suleman
Rise 1, 2021
Stainless steel with hand-beaten repousse work
42 x 42 x 246 in
Adeela Suleman
Rise 1, 2021 (Detail)
Stainless steel with hand-beaten repousse work
42 x 42 x 246 in
Adeela Suleman
Rise 1, 2021 (Detail)
Stainless steel with hand-beaten repousse work
42 x 42 x 246 in
Adeela Suleman
Rise 1, 2021 (Detail)
Stainless steel with hand-beaten repousse work
42 x 42 x 246 in
Adeela Suleman
Darkest Hour 3, 2021
Stainless steel cake piping nozzles, sink drain cover, cooking utensil, doughnut cutter padded with foam and rexine
13 x 11 x 16 in
Adeela Suleman
Darkest Hour 4, 2021
Stainless steel cake piping nozzles, sink drain cover, bathroom drain cover, cooking utensil jar, spoons, padded with foam and rexine
17 x 11 x 16 in
Adeela Suleman
Darkest Hour 5, 2021
Stainless steel crescent pot strainer, brass cake piping nozzles, sink drain cover, small bowls, cooking utensil
12 x 11 x 15.5 in
Aicon Contemporary is honored to be exhibiting at The Armory Show 2021 with a solo presentation by Adeela Suleman.
Adeela Suleman’s fascination with violence, especially deathly violence, which is always adjunct to radical religiosity, comes from a life time spent in Karachi, Pakistan. Days there are often spent worrying about a safe route to work and back, about a child or partner who is late and not answering their phone, about little things that would not be worry-worthy in another setting.
"An entire decade of my artistic endeavour has been invested into an investigation of violence and its effect on the country and on people’s mind, and the scars it imprints on our memory and our soul. We, the artists, are at times selfish; we look at someone else’s pain and suffering, and the first thing that comes to our mind is how can we represent it visually?
The process of guilt and introspection starts immediately after we experience larger than life events. My biggest challenge has always been how to represent the un-representable in a way that it respects the victims but translates their experience to the viewers." - Adeela Suleman
Suleman takes the moments, that she has lived through and that she has others live through, and turns them into art. Her shiny, beautifully crafted surfaces of stainless steel are made up of dead birds, rendered using traditional repousse technique. These birds represent the everyday, unsung victims of violence. They come together in flowing curtains, textured surfaces that drape walls, or create free-standing forms. These shimmering towers, in their adjacency and proportions, may remind the viewer of another set of two towers, and another September in New York.
No sooner had Pakistani artist Adeela Suleman’s exhibit opened at the Karachi Biennale
last week than she had an encounter that artists, writers, journalists and activists say has
become common under the current government: It was shut down.
Her installation, a work that referenced the case of a police officer accused of being
behind more than 400 murders and assassinations, was then wrecked and carted off in
a truck.
Pakistani authorities are cracking down on free speech, a move critics say reflects a
renewed authoritarianism driven by the military but veiled with the veneer of an elected
government.
Criticism of national-security issues and coverage of the political opposition has all but
disappeared from news broadcasts as a result of pressure and guidance from the media
regulator and security officials, according to local journalists.
Aicon Gallery congratulates Adeela Suleman and Abdullah M. I. Syed on their participation in the exhibition I Don't Want to be There When It Happens, at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA). In response to the 70th anniversary of the Partition of Colonial India (14 August 1947), this exhibition features artists from both Pakistan and India whose evocative practices convey the profound existential unease of our age, either directly or indirectly. They unravel the present time, dealing with the legacy of history, as well as foretelling the future.
Aicon Gallery is delighted to announce the acquisition of two seminal video works by Adeela Suleman by Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich. The acquisition will be accompanied by a discussion with the artist at the museum on Thursday, July 20th at 6:30pm in the Ernst von Siemens-Auditorium. The acquired work Don't Despair, Even Over the Fact that You Don't Despair was featured in Suleman's exhibition Not Everyone's Heaven held at Aicon Gallery in June, 2017.
Aicon Gallery is delighted to congratulate Adeela Suleman on her participation in The Artist / Knight, a group exhibition at Gaasbeek Castle, Brussels. The Artist/Knight is an exhibition with and about artists imbued with the spirit of chivalry and who bring the knight to life in countless incarnations, ranging from gentle irony to unbounded passion. The exhibition runs from July 11th through November 5th and features artists such Marina Abramovic, Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Barbara Kruger, Jonathan Meese, and Yoko Ono, among many others.
We are thrilled to announce the participation of Adeela Suleman in the 2016 edition of the Singapore Biennale, An Atlas of Mirrors, which runs from October 27, 2016 through February 26, 2017. Suleman's recent work has centered around hand-beaten steel reliefs, rendered in the hammered metalworking tradition of Islamic art, depicting beheaded figures engaged in violent, but also absurd, scenes of armed conflict. Her latest solo exhibition with Aicon Gallery New York, Towards the End, took place in 2014.
