There’s an ambitious exhibit of Asian American art at the Asia Society in New York, called “One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now.” 
The New York Times has a detailed review. Among the 21 artists whose works are being exhibited, at least two are desi, Saira Wasim and Chitra Ganesh.
Saira Wasim, who is from Lahore, trained in painting classical Mughal miniatures before moving to the U.S. recently. She was part of the “Karkhana” group that had its own show in New York not too long ago (see Manish’s post from last year). She does these great collage-like miniatures that often parody either political figures or scenes of cross-cultural misunderstanding.
Among the images of Wasim’s I’ve come across on the internet, my favorite so far is “Buzkashi” (Goat-grabbing), pictured above (click on the image to see the full picture). Here is how Wasim characterizes the painting on her website:
So this painting depicts One Mans show of Military Dictator of Pakistan, Perverz Musharaff sitting on a presidency throne and his imperialism is shown with four arms like Hindu god Shiv.
The basic constitutional structure of the country evolving around his regime; army generals are celebrating martial law by dancing and wearing Hawaiian sandals.
The worlds seventh nuclear state in spite of her national debt over forty billion dollars and spending on defense budget over 3.5 billion dollars a year. Here goat is symbolized as innocent public. (link)
Wow. I’m surprised there hasn’t been an outcry about her work yet (maybe there has been one, and I missed it).
Chitra Ganesh’s installation art sounds harder to visualize:
Installation art is pushed in different directions by several artists. In mural-size ink drawings, Chitra Ganesh subjects the female body to mutations, exaggerations and struggles worthy of Hindu deities and enlivened with beads, glitter and colored plastic. But routine female obsessions with hair, nails and eyelashes are also evoked. (link)
Again, I’m having trouble visualizing this in the abstract. An earlier exhibit by Chitra Ganesh at another gallery explored the Ramayana from a feminist point of view; it looks pretty interesting.
If anyone goes to this exhibit, I would be curious to hear your reviews. From the review in the Times, the non-desi Asian American art sounds quite interesting. Sadly, I won’t be heading to New York anytime soon, so I may miss it.
