New Acquisitions in the Department of South Asian Art, Islamic Art, & Antiquities

November 6, 2025–March 8, 2026

Gallery 150

Recently installed in CAM’s New Acquisitions Gallery (G150) are works by four internationally acclaimed living artists: Samira Abbassy, Kamrooz Aram, Chitra Ganesh, and Reena Saini Kallat. Seen together, these artworks represent the contemporary collecting strategy of the Department of South Asian Art, Islamic Art, and Antiquities. Working with artists and galleries, CAM is building a collection reflective of the vibrant artistic networks across South and West Asia, as well as the region’s diasporic communities in the US, Canada, and UK. 

In Ghosts of her Migration, Samira Abbassy explores her own Iranian heritage to ask broader questions about identity and belonging through a unique symbolic vocabulary. Kamrooz Aram’s painting Untitled (Arabesque Composition) explores the complicated relationship between Modernism and ornament by activating the “arabesque,” questioning the often-arbitrary distinction between what is considered “ornamentation” and “art.” Chitra Ganesh’s portfolio Sultana’s Dream (12 of which are currently on view) illustrates Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s 1905 satirical feminist mani­festo while also drawing upon themes of technology, futurism, environmen­talism, popular culture, and colonialism to upend the gender imbalance faced by Hossain at the turn of the twentieth century. Finally, Reena Saini Kallat’s Cobger and Poppy-Lily of the Valley combine animals, trees, or plants that are considered the national symbols of rival countries to emphasize how the natural world is uncontained by political boundaries. Visit us soon to see these incredible artworks in person.