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Pher Bahar Ayee (Come Spring Again)

Rasheed Araeen

Pher Bahar Ayee (Come Spring Again)

2021

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Rasheed Araeen

Pher Bahar Ayee (Come Spring Again)

2021

Physical Qualities Acrylic on wood, Overall: 72 × 81 × 11 in. (182.9 × 205.7 × 27.9 cm.)
Credit Line Art Fund established with exchange funds from gifts of Dr. and Mrs. Edgar F. Berman, Equitable Bank, N.A., Geoffrey Gates, Sandra O. Moose, National Endowment for the Arts, Lawrence Rubin, Philip M. Stern, and Alan J. Zakon
Object Number 2023.94
Rasheed Araeen, a vital voice in articulating the global impact of European colonialism, made Pher Bahar Ayee (Come Spring Again) as a part of his series Structures. His use of geometry directly references a focus on symmetry within abstract art of the 1960s. This interest coincided, for Araeen, with the designs and motifs in Islamic art, allowing the artist to assert his own Muslim identity through the work. Meticulously crafted and proudly imperfect, Pher Bahar Ayee (Come Spring Again) presents a metaphor for belief and lived experiences. By recalling the spiritual effects of balance, Araeen honors red, yellow, and blue as the source of all other colors. The work recognizes the contrast between the divine and the never-perfect in the structures of our environments. With this construction of support systems, Araeen brought together his background as a structural engineer with a hand-assembled sensibility.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 2023; Aicon Gallery, New York
Baltimore Museum of Art, "Crosscurrents: Works from the Contemporary Collection," Gallery 03, February 26-June 2025.

Artist

Rasheed Araeen

1934–2000

born Karachi, Pakistan 1935
Meet Rasheed Araeen

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