Home Placements Faculty Portal Student Portal Centre for Research GIDS ITC Faculty Positions Available Academic Calendar Code of Conduct Accessibility E-library

Samina Ali

Samina Iqbal is an artist, art historian, curator and an academic. She received her BFA from the National College of Arts, Lahore, an MFA from the University of Minnesota and a PhD in art historical studies from the Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond.

Her research interest is modern and contemporary art of South Asia. Her PhD thesis focused on exploring the development of Modern art in Pakistan in the first decade of its establishment through an artist collective called Lahore Art Circle. She is currently working on extending her research by undertaking a comparative study of what modern art entailed for other neighboring countries of Pakistan, including the MENASA region, while examining the respective, purposefully open-ended, dialectical tensions between international, national, and local stylistic concerns of the region—a parallel dialogue to the western canon. Besides her academic engagements, she has also worked as an independent researcher for Asia Art Archive Hong Kong leading the digitization projects of Salima Hashmi and Zahoor ul Akhlaq archives.

Samina has taught studio arts and art history courses at various universities in Pakistan, Qatar, and the US including Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, Appalachian State University Boone, North Carolina, and Beaconhouse National University Lahore.

CV

Book Chapters:

  1. Upcoming “Samuel Fyzee Rahamin: A Luminous Legacy”, SKIRA
  2. Upcoming “Performance Art in Pakistan,”( under review)  Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka Bangladesh
  3. Upcoming “Pakistan Quarterly: An Alternate Space of Artistic Expression”, Hazaar Bazaar, Oxford Publication, Karachi, Pakistan
  4. Upcoming “Anna Molka Ahmed: Pioneer Artist and Art Educator”, Co author Dr. Kenneth Robbins
  5. “Anwar Saeed: Interpreting Selves,” Lahore Biennale Reader02, Lahore Biennale Foundation, Pakistan. SKIRA, 2024
  6. “The Dialogue between Tradition and Modernity in Contemporary Pakistani Miniature Painting,” The Later: Contemporary Art of Pakistan and the Postcolonial Space, Dr Furqan Ahmad Collection, Karachi, Pakistan, 2024
  7. “Censorship and Curatorial Responsibilities,” March Meeting 2020, Unravelling the Present, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah 2021

 

Journal Articles

  1. “Not So Silent: Socio-Political Expression, and Public Sphere in the Works of Pakistani Artivists,” South Asian Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SMAJ), Paris 2024  https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/9230
  2. “Home is Anywhere and Nowhere,” Art Now, 01 December 2019

  3. “Charting the Terrene: The Evolution and Devolution of Art Education in Pakistan,” Art Now, July   2018

  4. “The Matrix of Biennale and Pakistan,” Art Now, 01 April 2018
  5. “Sheikh Safdar Ali and the Emergence of Modern Avant-Garde Art Pakistan,” Sixth International THAAP Conference Publication: People’s History of Pakistan 2015                     

 

Essays in Exhibition Catalogues

  • “A Modern Vision for Modern Times: Lahore Art Circle in Pakistan,” Group Dynamics: Blue Rider and Collectives of the Modernist Period- Lenbachhaus Museum Munich 2022
  • “Politics of Being Human,” Catalog of Khalil Chishtee, 20 November, Sanat Initiative, Karachi 2019
  • “Naya Daur: Shakir Ali and Lahore Art Circle,” Sang-e-Meel Publications, Lahore 2017

 

Online Essays

 

SELECTIVE CONFERENCES / PRESENTATIONS

  • 2024 “Zahoor ul Akhlaq’s Public Sculptures,” Asia Art Archive Hong Kong and Hauser Wirth Institute, New York, May 29
  • “Not So Silent: Socio-Political Expression, and Public Sphere in the Works of Pakistani Artivists,” Narratives of Place- Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives and Presentations, 2nd Annual Conference of the Department of Media Studies, Art & Design Lahore School of Economics May 2-3, 2024
  • 2023 “Contemporary Miniature Painting in Pakistan: Tradition, Authenticity and Validation,” Art Empire and Nation, Annual Art History Conference 2023, University College London April 12-14,
  • 2022 “Sense and Sensibility of Lahore Art Circle”, Ruptured Histories: Critical Exchanges on Issues of Decolonization with Dr. Sinha Raja Tammita Karachi Biennale 2022,
  • 2022 “Atiya and Fyzee’s Journey from Bombay to Karachi”, Paper Presentation and Panel discussion with Professor Naazish Ataullah and Muneeza Shamsie, Lahore Literary Festival 18 March.
  • 2021 “Personal Art Archives in the Public Doman,” with Ishita Shah, Vallabhi Jalan and Piyankar Bahadur Chand, Mobile Library Nepal, 25 February.
  • 2020 “A New Beginning: Lahore Art Circle,” Mind the Dash: The Modern/Contemporary & the ‘In-Between’ in Indian Art, The Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation in collaboration with the Peabody Essex Museum, 25September.
  • 2020 “Lahore Art Circle: The First Artists Collective of Pakistan,” Group Dynamics – Artists' Collectives of the Modernist Period “Munich, Germany, 23 – 26 April (virtual Conference).

  • 2020 “A New Beginning: Lahore Art Circle to Pakistan Group London,” The School of Modernities at the Giacometti Fondation Paris, 20 April.

  • 2020 “Collectives from the 1950s to the present,” Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka Bangladesh, 14 February.
  • 2020 “Pak Tea House and Lahore Art Circle,” Explorations in Transforming the Public Sphere: Cafe? Culture in 20th-Century India and Pakistan, New York Hilton, American History Association, Hilton Hotel, NY, 3-6 January.
  • 2019 “Decolonizing Modernism: Notions of Entropy in the works of Lahore Art Circle,” Worlding the Global: The Arts in the Age of Decolonization, University of Carleton, Ottawa, Canada, 6-9 November.
  • 2019 “Lahore Art Circle: A new Pakistan,” India and Pakistan: The Formative Phase, 1947-c.1960,  Senate House, University of London, London, 21-22 May.
  • 2018 “Pakistan Quarterly: Sight of Substance,” Focal Point, 8-10 Nov. Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah.
  • 2018 “Modern Art of Pakistan: Lahore Art Circle and the Soft Cultural Diplomacy of the United States,” Annual Conference, Courtauld Institute of Art King’s College London, a collaboration of Asia Art Archive, Paul Mellon Centre London, and Tate Research Centre: Asia 5 - 7April.
  • 2018 “Pakistan Quarterly: Art Historical Evidence,” It Begins with a Story: Art Periodicals Symposium, Asia Art Archive and the University of Hong Kong, 13-15 January.
  • 2016 “The Avant Guard Artists of Lahore Art Circle,” Mid Atlantic Symposium for Graduate Students at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 5 March.