1) This monumental miniature assembles recurrent motifs from the artist’s visual vocabulary: female figures arranged into a spinning wheel; animal silhouettes; the gopi-hair/black crows; the scrambled Urdu text; the French horn; and the East India Company Man who is the only character in colour. The densely layered surface of the drawing ‘encapsulates’ the confrontation staged by the artist between ‘East’ and ‘West’. 2) The video takes its title from the bugle call used by the British Army. Sikander’s reference is specifically to the final British colony in Asia, Hong Kong, quit in 1997, but the video widens the resonance of the title to explore the period of the British Raj. Presented by the Art Fund through Art Fund International.

Provenance

The artist.