Talk & Discussion - I Am and I Am Not

Thursday, June 29th, 2017, 7.30 p.m.

Aisha Khalid, together with art critic Hili Perlson and Timo Kaabi-Linke, held a talk about her show I Am and I Am Not at Zilberman Gallery–Berlin on June 29. Khalid, Perlson and Kaabi-Linke discussed the question, how the notion of craft and its implementation relate to contemporary expression and how her practice today connects with the philosophy of the miniature tradition. Strongly influenced by the figurative miniature tradition of the Mughal Empire, Aisha Khalid, takes the tradition one step further and contemplates on contemporary issues such as the female figure, or say, the global politics and the uncertainty surrounding us, as apparent in her previous works. 

Aisha Khalid is one of the most prominent contemporary artists from Pakistan, and also works as curator and art educationist. She graduated from National College of Arts, Lahore, in 1997 and received her post-graduate degree at Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, in 2002. She participated in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including Venice Biennial 2009, Fukuoka Triennale 2001, Sharjah Biennial 2011, Moscow Biennial 2013, Kabul 2008 and the V&A Museum, the Corvi-Mora Gallery, Asia House (all three in London), Whitworth Art Gallery Manchester, Aga Khan Museum Toronto, the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and the Modern Art Museum Arnhem, the Netherlands. Aisha was finalist and people’s choice winner of the Jameel Prize 2011, and was awarded the Birgit Skiold Memorial Trust Award of Excellence 2010 and the Alice Award 2012. Her works are exhibited in several museum and private collections all over the world, such as Aga Khan Museum Toronto, M+ Museum Hong Kong, V&A Museum, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum Japan, Sharjah Art Museum, Queensland Art Gallery, Sheikh Zayed Museum, Harris Museum and World Bank. 

Timo Kaabi-Linke lives and works with his wife Nadia Kaabi-Linke in Berlin. As a freelance author he has published on topics ranging from art to technology research, investigating apparatus hermeneutics in the 20th-century literature. His journalistic work also includes publications on the concept of presence in contemporary art as well as the criticism of post-colonial conditions practiced in the art market. He curated the exhibition Chkoun Ahna (Who are we?) in the National Museum of Archeology in Carthage and is co-founder of the collective Carthage Contemporary.

Hili Perlson is a Berlin based writer, art critic and lecturer. She is the European Editor of the global newswire artnet News. Her writing has appeared a.o. in Artforum, Art in America, Frieze, New York Times as well as in numerous exhibition catalogues and publications. She also teaches fashion journalism at AMD, Berlin. From 2010-2014, she was the Deputy Editor of Sleek Magazine for Art and Fashion.