In just two short weeks, Baseera Khan: I Am an Archive opens debuting eleven new artworks, in conversation with key works made by the Brooklyn artist since 2017. For several of these works, Khan collaborated with museum conservator Victoria Schussler and curator Ayşin Yoltar-Yıldırım to stage intercessions with objects from our Arts of Islamic World collection. The series’s title “Law of Antiquities” refers to relatively recent global regulations that safeguard cultural objects—such as the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict—but do not afford individuals and communities that same protection. It also refers to guidelines prescribed by Brooklyn Museum conservators for interacting with the artworks, around which Khan constructed the project’s rules of engagement.
See this series and more on October 1, when Baseera Khan: I Am an Archive opens, presented as part of the UOVO Prize for an emerging Brooklyn artist.
Photos by Willa Cosinuke, Sarah DeSantis, and Carmen Hermo