Lot 45: Dis-Location 3, 2007-2008

Dis-Location 3, 2007-2008
C-print flush mounted to aluminium with Diasec face in two parts.  241.3 x 317.5 cm. (95 x 125 in).   This work is from an edition of five.

 Nature Morte, New Dehli

Rashid Rana is a master at addressing political and social issues through ironic juxtaposition. His works vacillate between the micro and macro as he creates a composite image arranged from thousands of pixels or miniaturized photos, often at times depicting mundane scenes of life in Lahore.
In his work, Rana cleverly relates back to the history of art in Pakistan, his native country. A graduate of the National College of Arts, Lahore, the most respected traditional miniature painting program in the world, Rana deviated from his peers moving into digital media and photography and away from the traditional painting techniques taught at the school. Yet, in spite of his embrace of new media, Rana manages to wryly preserve the idea of the miniature in his work through his mosaic-like usage of minute photographs in constructing his images.
"In this age of uncertainty we have lost the privilege of having one world view. Now every image, idea and truth (may it be ancient ormodern) encompasses its opposite within itself. Thus we live in a state of duality. This internal conflict translates into my work, on a formal level, as well as having geographical, historical and political connotations." (Rashid Rana, Artist Statement, The 2006 Sovereign Asian Art Prize, n.p.)
Rana's ability to identify and create these tensions between the whole and its parts in his pointillist photographs has become his hallmark.The artist is adept at pulling apart the world's facades, forcing his viewers to look beyond the larger image at the sum of its parts. In doing so, Rana reveals a litany of cultural, political and economic ills lying closely beneath its surface.