Shahzia Sikander’s Luminous Art Explores East and West, Past and Present, Order and Chaos

On a surprisingly springlike day in late February, Shahzia Sikander was hard at work at Pace Paper Studio in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. Having just sent off the artworks for her upcoming retrospective in Venice, she was now immersed in a new series of works on paper. She was also fielding calls about a controversy over her work that had just erupted in Texas. The dispute involved an 18-foot-high bronze sculpture recently installed in a plaza at the University of Houston. Titled Witnes