Comisario, Crítico/Periodista, Investigador/Docente

Omar Kholeif

Cairo, Al Qahirah, Egipto

Datos generales

Residencia:

Reside en London, London, City of, Reino Unido

Actividad vigente:

Director de Colecciones y Curador Senior EN:

Sharjah Art Foundation

Desde jun 2019

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Etiquetas:

Arte contemporáneo Arte Político

Enlaces oficiales:

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Descripción del Profesional del arte

Omar Kholeif (PhD, MA), FRSA is a writer, curator, editor, and broadcaster based in London. In June 2019, Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) President and Director Hoor Al Qasimi announced the appointment of Dr. Omar Kholeif to the newly created position of Director of Collections and Senior Curator, where he will lead the foundation’s acquisition strategy and develop a year-round program of exhibitions. Kholeif, who previously was guest curator, will also work in collaboration with Al Qasimi and the Sharjah Art Foundation team in developing plans for Jurainah Art Space, a new, 13,000 square-meter building that will house the foundation’s growing collection of more than 1,000 works of contemporary and 20th-century art rooted in the region and radiating internationally. Designed by Lebanese architect Mona El Mousfy, the building is anticipated to open in 2022. Egyptian-born, Dr Omar Kholeif, over the last decade, has curated more than 100 exhibitions, special projects and ... commissions globally. He has authored and/or edited more than 20 books and catalogues on art, including recent publications Goodbye, World! Looking at Art in the Digital Age (Sternberg Press, 2018) and The Artists Who Will Change the World (Thames and Hudson, 2018). Kholeif's most recent projects include Time, Forward!—the V-A-C Foundation's contribution to the 58th Venice Biennale—, the 14th Sharjah Biennial: Leaving the Echo Chamber: Making New Time , as well as upcoming projects including the first retrospective of David Lynch's art in the UK for the Manchester International Festival and Focus: Drawing, Tracing, and Mapping at Abu Dhabi Art. He also recently served as a Visiting Tutor at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. Previously, he was Manilow Senior Curator and Director of Global Initiatives at the MCA Chicago, where he curated the first ever museum solo museum show of Michael Rakowitz, Otobong Nkanga's first U.S. museum survey and the first U.S. museum solo show of Egyptian artist Basim Magdy. Kholeif also oversaw major group shows—including Eternal Youth —and co-curated the museum's 50th anniversary exhibition. He also oversaw numerous major acquisitions, especially by artists from the Middle East including Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Joana Hadjidthomas and Khalil Joreige, Jumana Manna, Walid Raad, Latifa Echakhch, Basim Magdy, Michael Rakowitz, Etel Adnan, Sophia Al-Maria and Marwan—for which the MCA remains the only major museum in North America to hold a major painting in its collection. Prior to his time with the MCA Chicago, he was Curator at Whitechapel Gallery, London, where he curated Emily Jacir: Europa, which travelled to the Irish Museum of Art. He also curated the blockbuster Electronic Superhighway, which travelled to MAAT in Lisbon. He also instigated the major collaboration with the Barjeel Art Foundation, Imperfect Chronology: Arab Art from the Modern to the Contemporary, as well as projects with the V-A-C Foundation including Mike Nelson, Fiona Banner, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and James Richards. He has also been Senior Curator at Cornerhouse and HOME, Manchester—where he curated solo shows of Sophia Al-Maria and Joana and Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige—the latter which was a collaboration with the MIT List Center. Prior to that, he was Curator at FACT—Foundation for Art and Creative Technology—where he organised exhibitions of Akram Zaatari and Ahmed Basiony. His multiple curatorial projects include Focus: Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean at the Armory Show, New York; Abraaj Group Art Prize; Cyrus Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale; and contributing curator to the 2012 Liverpool Biennial. Kholeif is a Churchill Fellow, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and member of AICA—the International Association of Art Critics. He has served on numerous juries, including those for the Film London Jarman Award and the Thoma Foundation Arts Writing Award in Digital Art and has received awards and grants from major organisations, including the Graham Foundation for the Advanced Study in the Fine Arts and the Andy Warhol Foundation ǀ Creative Capital. In 2016, he was the Goldberg Visiting Professor/Curator at Hunter College, New York. He holds MA degrees from the University of Glasgow and Royal College of Art, London as well as a PhD from the University of Reading and the University of the Arts, Zurich.

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