{"id":682260,"date":"2025-11-13T01:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T22:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=682260"},"modified":"2025-11-13T01:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T22:11:12","slug":"pyaari-azaadis-epic-mission-to-mend-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=682260","title":{"rendered":"Pyaari Azaadi\u2019s Epic Mission to Mend the World\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<article id=\"post-1056761\" class=\"post-1056761 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-features tag-books tag-featured tag-new-york tag-sexual-assault entry\">\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"newspack-popup-container newspack-lightbox newspack-popup hidden newspack-lightbox-placement-center newspack-lightbox-size-small   newspack-lightbox-no-padding     \" role=\"button\" id=\"id_882259\" data-segments=\"64266\" data-frequency=\"0,0,3,day\" data-suppression=\"ActiveCampaign\" data-scroll=\"25\">\n<div class=\"newspack-popup-wrapper \" data-popup-status=\"publish\">\n<div class=\"newspack-popup__content-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"newspack-popup__content\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-style-default has-border-color has-base-3-border-color\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-af81f691 wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center sans-serif\" id=\"h-subscribe-to-our-newsletter\">Subscribe to our newsletter<\/h3>\n<div class=\"newspack-registration newspack-ui \">\n<div class=\"newspack-registration__form-content\">\n<div class=\"newspack-registration__main\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"newspack-ui\">\n<div class=\"newspack-ui__word-divider\">\n\t\t\t\tOr\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"newspack-registration__have-account\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tSign in to an existing account\n\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"newspack-registration__help-text\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPrivacy Policy\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"newspack-registration__registration-success newspack-registration--hidden newspack-ui__box newspack-ui__box--success newspack-ui__box--text-center\">\n<p>Success! 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Sign in here.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<aside>\n<div class=\"newspack-popup-container newspack-popup hidden  newspack-inline-popup  newspack-lightbox-no-border    sans-serif\" role=\"button\" id=\"id_972119\" data-segments=\"64266,64264,64249\" data-frequency=\"0,0,0,month\">\n<p class=\"has-secondary-variation-color has-text-color has-link-color has-small-font-size\"><strong>We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. <\/strong> If you value our coverage and want to support more of it, please join us as a member.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p><em><strong>Editor\u2019s Note:<\/strong>\u00a0The following story contains mentions of sexual assault and harassment. To reach the National Sexual Assault Hotline, call 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit <\/em><em>online.rainn.org<\/em><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>At the core of Pyaari Azaadi\u2019s diasporic artistic genius lies the belief that to do something fully and in an embodied way, one must immerse oneself in the storms of the heart, where our emotional and physical selves congeal as both metaphor and sacred koan. It is in that space \u2014 where even light is dimmed \u2014 that we live our truth, the elusive state that all people of conscience strive to hold.<\/p>\n<p>In those storms, we encounter spiritual reckonings that challenge us to reflect and reassess. Within their tides, we learn to swim and, in time, to save those around us who are drowning. Looking at Azaadi\u2019s art, one can see monuments to victories in battles yet to be waged and won.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\">\n<aside>\n<div class=\"newspack-popup-container newspack-popup hidden  newspack-inline-popup      \" role=\"button\" id=\"id_882262\" data-segments=\"64266,64249\" data-frequency=\"0,0,3,day\" data-suppression=\"ActiveCampaign\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignfull\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size\"><strong>Get the latest art news, reviews and opinions from Hyperallergic.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-newspack-newsletters-subscribe newspack-newsletters-subscribe is-style-modern multiple-lists\" data-success-message=\"Thank you for signing up!\">\n<div class=\"newspack-newsletters-lists\">\n<ul>\n<li>\n<li>\n<li><\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>I first encountered Pyaari in 2017, when she invited me to a studio visit early that year. Her invitation introduced me to her expansive practice, which felt as much like the work of a conductor or community organizer as that of a conventional visual artist. Her first message to me began, \u201cHi Hrag, hope this finds you in fighting spirit,\u201d a phrase that immediately revealed her engaged, unapologetic approach to the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I remember my trip to her studio,\u00a0then located in her home by Brooklyn\u2019s Navy Yard, as an eye-opening experience that guided me through wormholes of perception and revealed layers of communities I thought I already knew. I left feeling renewed, writing to her afterward, \u201cI felt inspired.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A few months later, she curated a major exhibition, <em>Lucid Dreams and Distant Visions: South Asian Art in the Diaspora<\/em>, at New York City\u2019s Asia Society. She also organized an associated conference at the Queens Museum, where she served as the founding director of Public Events and Projects from 2003 to 2006. The gathering built on an early exhibition of diasporic South Asian art she had curated. For this iteration she brought together a who\u2019s who of the city\u2019s and region\u2019s South Asian art communities. To call the event joyous would be an understatement \u2014 it became a hothouse of ideas and connections, blooming before our eyes.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure data-wp-context='{\"imageId\":\"691505fdd5d7b\"}' data-wp-interactive=\"core\/image\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-lightbox-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1807\" src=\"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/dsc_0659-1200x1807-1.jpeg\" class=\"wp-image-1056774\" title=\"dsc_0659-1200x1807-1\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Faluda Islam performing at the\u00a0<em>Fatal Love<\/em>\u00a0conference at the Queens Museum, which was linked to the\u00a0<em>Lucid Dreams and Distant Visions<\/em>exhibition at Asia Society<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>One particularly poignant moment featured a drag performance by Faluda Islam, the alter ego of Pakistani-Lebanese-Iranian artist Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who danced through the aisles and even accepted tips from attendees. The celebration, at times almost raucous, swept us away from the hushed tones of Manhattan museums and into the lively, obstreperous atmosphere of a community in the act of creation. The weekend event was as moving as Pyaari\u2019s exhibition, demonstrating that her work \u2014 her craft, her art, her life \u2014 spans genres, spaces, and time. We felt connected not to a family into which we were born, but to one we cultivated, even if briefly. In that way, Pyaari\u2019s practice is deeply queer, grounded in the knowledge that chosen families are often the strongest foundations. As she once said, \u201cEvery object is a conversation. Every exhibition, a gathering. My work is about pulling bodies and hearts together, forging a space against erasure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">* \u00a0 * \u00a0 *<\/p>\n<p>Our relationship as artist and critic deepened in a profoundly unexpected way as we faced darkness together.<\/p>\n<p>On October 11, 2017, Pyaari messaged me about a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art spotlighting an artist she described as \u201cher own personal Harvey Weinstein.\u201d Soon after, following several Facebook posts sharing her story, she called into the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Using only her first name, she managed to hold back a torrent of emotions to explain that the celebrated artist was her personal tormentor. She recounted how, at 25, she was invited by the then-53-year-old artist to India for two weeks, during which she was abused by him in a hotel room. Listening to the conversation, you can recognize that this was an act of public courage, even more so in a pervasive rape culture wherein victims too often face blame or dismissal, especially when the accused abuser is powerful and male. She explained that the abusive dynamic continued in the form of messages and did not end until his death.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"797\" src=\"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/dsc_0248-1200x797-1.jpeg\" class=\"wp-image-1056773\" title=\"dsc_0248-1200x797-1\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A group dinner organized by Pyaari Azaadi at her home for the 2017 exhibition\u00a0<em>Lucid Dreams and Distant Visions: South Asian Art in the Diaspora<\/em>. Clockwise from bottom left, Yasmeen Siddiqui, Kanishka Raja, Al-an DeSouza, Pyaari, Naeem Mohaiemen, Ruby Chisti, Juli Raja, Bharti Lalwani, and Diya Vij.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The exhibition, along with the widely reported Harvey Weinstein case, triggered her flashbacks, which she described in the radio segment. The announcer added a legal disclaimer, noting that they did not know Pyaari and the accusation was about someone already deceased \u2014 deploying all the usual tools that shield institutions and individuals from the responsibility of bearing witness.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It was bravery on her part, but not justice. \u201cTo be able to come on the radio and say it is incredibly helpful \u2026 because it is a very powerful man and he\u2019s dead and there\u2019s a lot of money behind his career and there\u2019s going to be nothing I can do about it. But I can make it public, who he is, so that they know they are consuming a predator\u2019s work as they consume it,\u201d she said to the host. Lehrer added another disclaimer before saying, \u201c\u2026 if it helps that you got it out, I\u2019m glad.\u201d They exchanged formalities and she signed off, but she was not finished.<\/p>\n<p>We met a short while later, because she knew I was also a survivor of rape and childhood abuse \u2014 something I\u2019d revealed on social media. She was looking for someone who might understand, and who also belonged to her communities.<\/p>\n<p>Finding trust in the world is never easy. I knew going into that meeting, it could trigger difficult memories or lead to conflict, as survivors sometimes lash out when faced with the abyss. I reminded myself beforehand that, in such moments, we often hurt those around us first and most. I thought I was ready; we met at a Brooklyn breakfast spot to talk.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/img_7348-1200x900-1.jpeg\" class=\"wp-image-1056776\" title=\"img_7348-1200x900-1\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Nighttime gathering at Pyaari Azaadi\u2019s Xenana for readings\u00a0by\u00a0Mona Eltahawy, Yashica Dutt, and\u00a0Roohi Choudhry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When we sat down, she did something unexpected: she asked me to share my own stories of abuse. It felt strange at first, but necessary. It revealed how Pyaari never shied away from power, even when wrestling with her own, or with our power dynamic as art journalist and artist. By inviting my vulnerability, she freed me, if only momentarily. I shared not about my childhood, but about an incident as an adult involving an artist. She watched and listened, her gaze searching for honesty. She did not judge but met my story with understanding, touching me on a deeply emotional level. In that moment, we recognized what truth was in each other.<\/p>\n<p>We tend to build layers up around our wounds, hiding where the skin could not protect us. That morning, in that restaurant, Pyaari and I changed the bandages on our pain together. She turned her private suffering into a subject we could discuss, mourn, and even examine. She didn\u2019t create a hierarchy of suffering, but rather held space for me as I did for her, forging a bond that only survivors know. That experience transformed my understanding of her work. Pyaari is part of a new generation of artists who refuse to see art objects as the core of their practice. In that meeting, I felt a new horizon opening \u2014 a new way of being an artist, one she was helping to bring into being.<\/p>\n<p>Our intimacy as artist and journalist was unusually deep, but we were not yet friends \u2014 just colleagues. It was a difficult interaction, but such dynamics were familiar to me from healing spaces. Relationships between artists and those who write about them can shift in ways dictated by the art and by the demands of bearing witness, which is central to my own work and art practice.<\/p>\n<p>We looked for reasons to distrust and instead found the opposite. As a journalist, the experience was overwhelming. As an art critic, I became confused as to where the contours of the story and artwork existed. But I did not look away; it felt too important. Pyaari kept the tension between us taut, and I realized then that to tell this story another way would have been fruitless.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"797\" src=\"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/dsc_0094-1200x797-1.jpeg\" class=\"wp-image-1056779\" title=\"dsc_0094-1200x797-1\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A view of the December 3, 2017 #MeToo performance in front of the Met Breuer museum building on Madison Avenue<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A few days after that meeting, as I researched the story and considered what could be reported, she found and sent me her diary notes from the incident. She was protective about what she shared, and I asked her what she planned to do next. As a survivor, I knew reminding her of her agency might help. As a journalist, this was the natural question, and\u00a0she seemed to appreciate the prompt. Eventually, she revealed that she would stage a performance in front of the museum\u2019s Breuer outpost on the Upper East Side, determined to break the silence around the abuse. What is art, if not sometimes a battle of competing narratives? Who tells a story \u2014 and when? What do we omit, and why?<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\">\n<p>Healing is a circuitous route, picking up the parts we can carry and leaving others for the future, for when we are ready.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\">\n<p>On Sunday, December 3, 2017, I found myself sitting in a taxi beside filmmaker Mary Louise Schumacher, who was shadowing me for a documentary about art critics. As we rode over the Queensborough bridge, she asked what it was like to cover such stories as a survivor myself. I remember feeling a little numb, thinking about my own healing journey, about Pyaari\u2019s story, and about the brief period in which the world seemed willing to listen to survivors during the #MeToo movement.<\/p>\n<p>When I arrived on Madison Avenue, I saw the artist, her husband, and their allies lined up outside the museum. As I later reported, they held red signs made by artist Swati Khurana, emblazoned with the words \u201cME TOO\u201d in block letters, and placed red gags \u2014 made by Fariba Alam and Pyaari \u2014 over their mouths. One sign stood out, the one held by Pyaari. It read: \u201cI SURVIVED \u2026 RAGHUBIR SINGH #MeToo!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The group caused some confusion among passersby \u2014 tourists and locals alike \u2014 since the artist\u2019s name was not widely known, but the message was unambiguous. Pyaari carefully described the 90-minute action as a performance, not a protest, even if the aesthetics of the latter figured into the work.<\/p>\n<p>In my reporting, I noted: \u201cEveryone I talked to who encountered the performance was uncertain as to how the museum should respond to the allegations, but they seemed thankful that the performance was taking place.\u201d A prominent Metropolitan Museum of Art employee told the artist in an email, \u201cThe Met fully supports the right to free expression and therefore we wish to assure you that we will not try to stop you.\u201d And they did not.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"857\" src=\"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/dsc_0128-1200x857-1.jpeg\" class=\"wp-image-1056780\" title=\"dsc_0128-1200x857-1\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A masked Pyaari Azaadi hold her sign in front of the Met Breuer with her husband\u00a0to one side and allies on the other. Left to right: Richard Wilson, Pyaari, Sonali Shroff &amp; Imani Uzuri.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>After the performance \u2014 which included some participants briefly going inside the building, and a moving song by Imani Uzuri \u2014 Pyaari hugged each participant in turn, offering a warmth that seemed to counteract the cold violence she had endured. She told me, \u201cHe used his art to trap me, so I can use my art to talk about my experience with him.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\">\n<p>Did she bring me into her work? In her studio was I initiated into her circles that seem to expand and shift, like borders, but more porous, until the artwork becomes the glue that binds us in the moment?<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\">\n<p>Being someone who has identified as a man for most of my life, I\u2019m acutely aware of my male privilege in her spaces and work, since she does not create them for men. This quality is fundamental to the aesthetics of her art. It\u2019s also hard to articulate, because so much of being a man in society involves refusing to explain things to others \u2014 expecting them to already know what society has taught you to believe you deserve.\u00a0<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\">\n<p>As the years passed, my relationship with Pyaari, once strictly professional, grew more personal. It is rare to find people who live so fiercely in public \u2014 managing their wounds while always holding space for the communal aspects that make the recovery more meaningful.<\/p>\n<p>Years later, I would visit her studio more frequently, especially during the pandemic, as we found ourselves messaging each other more routinely. By then, she was working in a spacious warehouse in East Williamsburg. It became a place where we listened, talked, and shared \u2014 sometimes while she made art, other times simply sharing a joint or laughter. It was a difficult period for both of us, for different reasons, but it became obvious that our personal turmoils were deeply connected to the chaotic violence we were also witnessing in the larger world. The pandemic blurred the boundary between personal and public pain, a reality impossible to ignore. At one point, a terrible argument strained our relationship. It took months to recover \u2014 not because we didn\u2019t love each other, which we found we did after six years, but because we had shown one another our deepest, darkest parts.<\/p>\n<p>When we look into the abyss, do we not scream?<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\">\n<p>Azaadi\u2019s art defies containment. Her solo show, <em>Talkin\u2019 Bout a Revolution<\/em>, at Pen &amp; Brush in New York City turns the gallery into a living ritual: each object, each photograph, each tapestry is charged with the collective energy of shared stories, both ancestral and contemporary. Portraits of leaders and lovers \u2014 writers, mothers, friends \u2014 anchor the exhibition in the power of care work, solidarity, and intergenerational wisdom. The mythologies of South Asian goddess figures collide with living queer and feminist resistance, saturated in color, pleasure, and longing.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/img_7354-1200x900-1.jpeg\" class=\"wp-image-1056781\" title=\"img_7354-1200x900-1\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Pyaari Azaadi, Mona Eltahawy, Roohi Choudhry, and Yashica Dutt pose in Xenana after an event<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On the lower level of the gallery, Pyaari mounted the video of her Met Breuer performance beside the bathroom. If you watch closely, you can see me darting around on the sidewalk, documenting the group as they stood, mostly silent. In front of the screen sits a sculpture of her abuser, depicted as a feckless figure on a mattress, his large testicles and hairy belly exposed like mounds in the countryside. In that small work, Pyaari transformed the monster into landscape \u2014 a marginalia commentary on her performance. Here, the man becomes a thing, his eyes closed, unable to speak. Smuggled into her imaginary, like a hostage, he is exposed for all to judge.<\/p>\n<p>It feels less intimate than factual, like a courtroom reenactment: her written words become physical, pulled from memory and rendered like a diorama. In that act of creation, somewhere between protest and prayer, Pyaari Azaadi forges art as radical embrace. It calls us to bear the weight of survivorship and to find, beneath its burdens, the shimmering possibility of new allies. In her practice, pleasure is weaponized, mourning is communal, and every object becomes an invitation to destroy the patriarchy that tears us apart.<\/p>\n<p>Talkin\u2019 Bout a Revolution <em>is a solo exhibition and forthcoming publication examining the enduring relationship between art and advocacy in the practice of artist Pyaari Azaadi. The exhibition, extended through February 14, 2026, remains on view at Pen + Brush, presenting a comprehensive selection of works that reflect Azaadi\u2019s sustained commitment to cultural, political, and feminist discourse.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This article will be included in a\u00a0catalogue featuring\u00a0newly commissioned essays from leading scholars, curators, and advocates within the art, social justice, and South Asian communities.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside>\n<div class=\"newspack-popup-container newspack-popup hidden  newspack-inline-popup  newspack-lightbox-no-border    \" role=\"button\" id=\"id_942621\" data-segments=\"64266,64264,64249\" data-frequency=\"0,0,0,month\">\n<p class=\"has-secondary-variation-color has-text-color has-link-color\">Please consider supporting <em>Hyperallergic<\/em>\u2019s journalism during a time when independent, critical reporting is increasingly scarce.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-secondary-variation-color has-text-color has-link-color\">We are not beholden to large corporations or billionaires. <strong>Our journalism is funded by readers like you<\/strong>, ensuring integrity and independence in our coverage. We strive to offer trustworthy perspectives on everything from art history to contemporary art. We spotlight artist-led social movements, uncover overlooked stories, and challenge established norms to make art more inclusive and accessible. With your support, we can continue to provide global coverage without the elitism often found in art journalism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-secondary-variation-color has-text-color has-link-color\"><strong>If you can, please join us as a member today.<\/strong> Millions rely on <em>Hyperallergic<\/em> for free, reliable information. By becoming a member, you help keep our journalism independent and accessible to all. 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