Rashid Rana

A foray into video art has resulted in seminal installations such as ‘Meeting Point’ (2006) in which the artist recalls anticipation from terrorism by projecting two airplanes facing and seeming to collide into each other, with the loud airspace audio.

Rana's work develop a conceptually driven, well-informed art practice, which maintains a pixelated attention to formal concerns. He explores media and identity – both bound by a sharp political edge as he satirizes pop culture and looks to reinterpret varied elements of art and cultural history. Utilizing such mediums as painting, video, installation and photography, Rana's works deal with everyday issues encompassing such themes as urbanization, faith, and tradition.

His recent international exhibitions include: Solo Exhibition, Lisson Gallery, London, Perpetual Paradox Solo Exhibition at Musée Guimet, Paris, France (2010), Where dreams Cross: 150 years of photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, to the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland, and Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK; The Empire Strikes Back; India Art Today, Saatchi Gallery (2010) The Power of Ornament, Lower Belvedere, Vienna.

One edition of his work "Red Carpet-1" was auctioned at Sotheby’s New York on 16 May 2008, for a record price of $623,000 US, highest price ever paid for a work of art produced by a Pakistani.

Dis-Location (2007), a major solo in a range of media show of his selected works spread across two galleries including Gallery Chemould Prescott marked his return to Mumbai after a gap of three years. Underlining the artist’s notability on the global art stage, an accompanying note said: “He has come to represent an entire generation of Pakistani Contemporary Artists. Moreover in terms of the Indian art scene, he is the first artist from across the border to have been so thoroughly embraced since partition era artists such as Abdul Rehman Chughtai and Allah Bux. Working both on major public installations as well as gallery based works, his art is now some of the most recognisable among artists from South Asia.”

Rashid Rana was born in Lahore, Pakistan. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan in 1992, and a Master of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, Massachusetts, US in 1994. He is the head of the Fine Art department and one of the founding faculty members of the School of Visual Arts and Design (SVAD), Beaconhouse National University, Lahore.