After Shahzia Sikander’s out of doors sculpture on show on the College of Houston campus was beheaded within the early hours of Monday, July 8, the artist made it clear that she doesn’t need the college to restore the piece.
“Transparency is most essential to counter concealment and secrecy,” Sikander wrote in a message to Hyperallergic. “The harm displays the hateful misogynistic act and it shouldn’t be forgotten. It’s a part of the historical past of the work and is a testomony to the ability of artwork.”
Kevin Quinn, government director of media relations on the college, advised Hyperallergic that the college “respect[s] the artist’s needs and can go away the sculpture as is.”
Sikander’s “Witness” (2023) is an 18-foot-tall gilded sculpture of a girl with ram horn-shaped braids and tentacular limbs, hovering in mid-air whereas donning a hoop skirt and a jabot collar in a nod to late Supreme Court docket Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The piece is considered one of three works co-commissioned in 2023 by the Public Artwork College of Houston System and the Madison Sq. Park Conservancy in New York Metropolis. Sikander debuted the work on the Manhattan park as part of the momentary exhibition Havah … to breathe, air, life, earlier than it journeyed to the Texas campus.
In an artist assertion, Sikander famous that “Witness” forcibly reinserts girls as members in and spectators of patriarchal regulation and morality, demanding company and autonomy by pure parts in gentle of the overturning of Roe v. Wade and Justice Ginsburg’s 2020 demise. When it got here time for the works to be put in on the College of Houston campus final February, Sikander and the college had been met with intense backlash from far-right, anti-choice lobbyists and organizations that decried the work as a “satanic abortion idol” and petitioned for the exhibition’s cancelation.
Because the Texas-based anti-abortion lobbying group Proper to Life threatened to protest on campus throughout the exhibition’s opening reception in late February, the college opted to cancel Sikander’s artist speak onsite and revealed a doc detailing the controversy surrounding the art work on its web site.
Earlier this week, a College of Houston spokesperson advised Hyperallergic that the college believes the vandalism of Sikander’s sculpture was “intentional,” noting that the college’s police division reviewed footage of the incident and is presently conducting an investigation.
Regardless of the messaging from the college, some stay below the impression that the sculpture was broken by Hurricane Beryl because the storm made landfall within the metropolis early on Monday.
Neither the college nor its police division instantly responded to Hyperallergic’s request to view the footage, and haven’t confirmed whether or not they’ll publicly launch it. Sikander advised Hyperallergic that she additionally requested entry to the footage and has not but obtained it.