Texas Anti-Abortion Group Decries “Satanic” Shahzia Sikander Work

Texas Right to Life, a powerful Christian anti-abortion organization that helped bring about the downfall ofRoe v. Wade, has demanded that Shahzia Sikander’s 2023 sculptureWitnessnot go on view at the University of Houston this month. The nonprofit has said they will “peacefully and prayerfully” protest the sculpture’s arrival at the university’s Cullen Family Plaza, where it is slated to be on view from February 28 through October 31.

The thirteen-foot-tall golden sculpture—which depicts a tentacled woman wearing a braided hairstyle recalling a ram’s horns and wearing a long skirt decorated with colorful, swooping glass mosaics—debuted last year in New York’s Madison Square Park as part of a public exhibition of the artist’s work jointly commissioned by the park’s conservancy and the University of Houston System’s public art program. Sikander in anartist’s statementexplained that the works on view, includingWitness, were meant to capture the “spirit and grit” of those who “step into and remain in the fight for equality.” Sikander pointed to the details of the figure’s collar, which recalls that frequently worn by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, acknowledging that the sculpture was intended as a nod to Ginsburg and lamenting the “setback to women’s constitutional progress” that came with Ginsburg’s death and the overturning ofRoe.

Kimberlyn Schwartz,  a spokesperson for Texas Right to Life, told news platform Axios Houston that the sculpture “celebrates Satan’s deceit,” pointing to a text on the Madison Square Park Conservancy’s website that read in part, “In the Abrahamic faiths the horned beast is associated with forces of evil, chaos, and destruction—the devil himself.” The University of Houston opined that the work might be offensive to some people, noting, “The sculpture has braids shaped like ram horns, representing the unification of disparate strands.” The artist has said the braids link to one of her paintings that represents the courage, fluidity, and resilience of the feminine.

Sikander has not yet publicly commented on the situation. Since the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, Texas has tightened its abortion laws, recently suing for and winning the right to prohibit emergency abortions, counter to federal recommendations.