Ambreen Butt, women rise up

Ann Shafer

When I’m hunting for new acquisitions, on the macro level I ask myself several questions. How does it fit into the larger collection? Is it continuing an established collecting area, or is it a wholly new avenue? Does it have friends already in the collection, and will they play well together in an interesting exhibition? And, will it be useful with students in the print room? On the micro level, other questions arise. When you find a work that is political in tone, for instance, I always ask myself, is it too specific to a certain moment that will be lost on future viewers, or is the message universal enough to be both specific and universal?

Ben Levy and I invited Joseph Carroll to be a vendor at the 2012 Baltimore Contemporary Print Fair, and he brought with him Ambreen Butt's set of five prints, Daughter of the East, 2008. I loved them then and pitched them, but the proceeds from the fair went to other acquisitions. I always regretted it, so when the same set of prints showed up at the 2017 print fair with Wingate Studio, I gave a little jump for joy. (Butt’s prints were printed and published by Wingate’s Peter Pettengill, a lovely person and a great printer, and are among the last things I acquired for the BMA.) The set of five prints are delicate and strong at the same time and reflect Butt’s early training as a miniature painter (she grew up in Pakistan and studied traditional Indian and Persian miniature painting at the National College of Arts in Lahore). In 1993, Butt moved to Boston to get an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She now lives in Dallas.

Daughter of the East, 2008, consists of five multi-plate etchings, some with chine collé, that are a reaction to the Siege of Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in Islamabad, which occurred July 3–11, 2007. During the siege, the Pakistani government raided the Red Mosque complex, whose students (men and women) and mosque leaders challenged the Pakistani government. They practiced radical, conservative religious teachings, and have since been linked to Al Qaeda. When negotiations with the mosque leaders failed, the complex was stormed by the Pakistani Army’s Special Services Group, resulting in 248 people injured, over one hundred dead, and fifty captured. While at least thirty women and children were able to escape unharmed, many were reported to have been used as shields by their male allies. Subsequent reporting indicates that no women were killed, although that has long been part of the narrative.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. Butt’s prints put forth the idea of women as fierce and vulnerable at the same time, of strength in numbers, and the power of the individual. In them there is both sorrow and pride, fear and purpose, belief and faith. Behind the figures, Butt takes stylistic elements of traditional Persian miniatures but creates them as aggregations of surprising objects: pistols, headwraps, helmets, ladybugs. In the first print, women, like ladybugs, gain power in numbers, even if only armed with bamboo sticks. In the second print, the figure’s burqa morphs into a dragon, which I choose to read as her power realized. In the third print, the female figure, who is specific and universal at the same time, dissolves into a splattering of ladybugs and flowers. In her ability to be one woman and all women, Butt may be referring to Indic and Buddhist philosophies in which the one and the infinite exist simultaneously. In the fourth print, the figure has dissolved into a thousand ladybugs and has assembled her power in the figure holding the rifle, ready to defend her beliefs. The final print depicts a woman with her face revealed (the artist herself), a solitary figure whose weapon is being destroyed by a woodpecker.

In terms of asking those questions about political prints—does it hold up even if you don’t know to which events the prints are referring—I believe these fit the bill. For me, they portray a full range of emotions on what it is to be a woman. Although we each bring our own gifts and individuality, we need each other and are stronger together. That seems like a solid message to send out into the world as this week of protest marches and public fury at the authoritarian steps being taken by those in power comes to an end. May Butt’s images and ideas help sustain us as we stand together for what is right. And may we come out the other end with systemic change at all levels of society.

Ambreen Butt (American, born Pakistan, 1969)
Printed and published by Wingate Studio
Daughter of the East, 2008
Portfolio of five color etchings with aquatint, spit bite aquatint, and drypoint on chine collé
Sheet (each): 634 × 481 mm. (24 15/16 × 18 15/16 in.); plate (each): 455 × 327 mm. (17 15/16 × 12 7/8 in.)
Baltimore Museum of Art: Print, Drawing & Photograph Society Fund, with proceeds derived from the 2017 Contemporary Print Fair, BMA 2017.68.1–5

Ambreen Butt (American, born Pakistan, 1969), Plate 1 from Daughter of the East, 2008, color etching with aquatint, spit bite aquatint, and drypoint on chine collé, sheet: 634 × 481 mm. (24 15/16 × 18 15/16 in.); plate: 455 × 327 mm. (17 15/16 × 12 7/8 in.), Baltimore Museum of Art: Print, Drawing & Photograph Society Fund, with proceeds derived from the 2017 Contemporary Print Fair, BMA 2017.68.1

Ambreen Butt (American, born Pakistan, 1969), Plate 2 from Daughter of the East, 2008, color etching with aquatint, spit bite aquatint, and drypoint on chine collé, sheet: 634 × 481 mm. (24 15/16 × 18 15/16 in.); plate: 455 × 327 mm. (17 15/16 × 12 7/8 in.), Baltimore Museum of Art: Print, Drawing & Photograph Society Fund, with proceeds derived from the 2017 Contemporary Print Fair, BMA 2017.68.2

Ambreen Butt (American, born Pakistan, 1969), Plate 3 from Daughter of the East, 2008, color etching with aquatint, spit bite aquatint, and drypoint on chine collé, sheet: 634 × 481 mm. (24 15/16 × 18 15/16 in.); plate: 455 × 327 mm. (17 15/16 × 12 7/8 in.), Baltimore Museum of Art: Print, Drawing & Photograph Society Fund, with proceeds derived from the 2017 Contemporary Print Fair, BMA 2017.68.3

Ambreen Butt (American, born Pakistan, 1969), Plate 4 from Daughter of the East, 2008, color etching with aquatint, spit bite aquatint, and drypoint on chine collé, sheet: 634 × 481 mm. (24 15/16 × 18 15/16 in.); plate: 455 × 327 mm. (17 15/16 × 12 7/8 in.), Baltimore Museum of Art: Print, Drawing & Photograph Society Fund, with proceeds derived from the 2017 Contemporary Print Fair, BMA 2017.68.4

Ambreen Butt (American, born Pakistan, 1969), Plate 5 from Daughter of the East, 2008, color etching with aquatint, spit bite aquatint, and drypoint on chine collé, sheet: 634 × 481 mm. (24 15/16 × 18 15/16 in.); plate: 455 × 327 mm. (17 15/16 × 12 7/8 in.), Baltimore Museum of Art: Print, Drawing & Photograph Society Fund, with proceeds derived from the 2017 Contemporary Print Fair, BMA 2017.68.5

B.K. BANGASH/AP PHOTO. See https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/07/23/days-of-rage