For the first time, a statue of ‘Lady Justice’ made by a Pakistani-American artist has received the honour of installation in front of a court in the United States.
New York-based Shahzia Sikander is a Pakistan-born visual artist who later moved to the US. With many impressive projects under her belt, Sikander’s latest art piece became the limelight of contemporary art and female representation on the art scene.
The statue, which is placed just outside the New York Appellate Courthouse in Manhattan, “first Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York—both located in the Flatiron District,” is one of its kind.
Sikander’s Instagram caption reads, “One of the large-scale sculptures is located on the west side of the park facing Fifth Avenue and can be animated through augmented reality on Snapchat. An accompanying video animation by the artist, also sited in the park, visually intertwines the work’s richly symbolic elements.”
Steps away at the corner of Madison Avenue and 25th Street, Sikander’s second female figure emerges from a lotus on the Courthouse rooftop, the first female figure to adorn one of its plinths as it joins a cohort of historic and religious male lawgivers.
In contrast to the traditional “Lady Justice,” a blindfolded woman upholding scales, Sikander’s figure is active and empowered, standing tall and gazing boldly forward.
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Talking to American media, the 54-year-old artist said that this statue was very much needed on a cultural level because the traditional way of presenting power is changing all over the world. The statue is also important in the context of the ongoing debate on women’s reproductive rights in the US as the US Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion.
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A National College of Arts graduate, Sikander later moved to the United States and attended the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), earning a Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Printmaking in 1995.
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