Tasbih, 2008

Maple wood stained with sumi ink (500 units), dusted with aluminum powder and strung with black leather cord
© Zarina; courtesy the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York. Photo by Ian Reeves.

Zarina is acclaimed for her lifelong exploration of the aesthetic and conceptual possibilities of paper, as well as for her tactile sculptures in metal and wood. Alongside fellow artists Howardena Pindell and Harmony Hammond, among others, Zarina co-founded A.I.R., the first women’s cooperative art gallery in New York, in 1972. Articulated through her geometric forms and Minimalist language is a complex emotional record of her itinerant status, addressing themes of displacement, memory, and home. In later years, Zarina created a number of sculptures based on tasbiḥ, sets of beads used in Muslim prayer. While a functional tasbiḥ need have only ninety-nine beads, or even thirty-three, Zarina chose to thread five hundred here. The gesture magnifies the object’s presence even as it references a memorable tasbiḥ owned by Zarina’s aunt when she was a child. The artist’s repetitive act of stringing each wood disk onto the leather cord seems poignantly evocative of her reflective, enduring dedication to identity and home.