Widely considered to be one of the leading artists of his generation in South Asia today, Rashid Rana emerged as the maker of an entirely new kind of art from Pakistan, at the start of this century.
His works are in various public and private collections including the British Museum London, Metropolitan Museum New York, Fukuoka Museum of Art, Japan and Saatchi Collection, London. He is the recipient of the prestigious Game-Changer Asia Art Award and was awarded International Artist of the Year by SAVAC Canada in 2003. Notable for his ideas, imagery and pictorial strategies, Rashid Rana has worked in dramatically different mediums, such as paintings, stainless steel sculptures, video installation, photo-sculptures and photo mosaics. He has exhibited extensively at various galleries and museums globally. He is the first living artist to have a “survey solo exhibition” at the Muse Guimet Paris. In 2015, his work was included in landmark exhibition entitled The Treasures of the World from British Museum, which was held at the National Museum of Singapore and along with Rashid Rana’s work had 239 objects from the entire Human history. His mid-career retrospective Rashid Rana’s solo survey exhibition at the Mohatta Palace Museum, Karachi is the largest exhibition by a single artist ever to be held in Pakistan.
His work has been shown at international venues such as Singapore Art Museum, Singapore; Hong Kong Art Center, Hong Kong; Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK; Saatchi Gallery, London, UK; Lower Belvedere, Vienna, Austria; the Asia Society, New York, USA; Kemper Art Museum, St Louis, USA; National Fine Arts Museum, Taichung, Tiwan; House of World Cultures, Berlin, Germany; Institute of the Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia; Gallery of Modern Art, Australia; Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester UK; Asia House, London, UK; Royal Academy, London, UK; 5th Asia Pacific Triennale, Queensland Gallery of Art, Australia; 3rd Fukuoka Triennale, Fukuoka Museum of Art, Japan, Venice Biennale 2015, Venice, Italy. 1st Singapore Biennale, Singapore; 1st Kiev International Biennale: ARSENALE, Kiev, Ukraine.
Primarily known for his art practice, Rashid Rana, in fact, occupies multiple simultaneous profiles. He mediates between artist, curator and visionary. He is a founding faculty member and currently the Dean of the School of Visual Arts and Design at BNU, Lahore. The use of new media amongst the new generation of Pakistani artists is mostly a part of his legacy as an artist and educator.
