Hassan Khan: Blind Ambition

Since the 1990s, Hassan Khan has developed a conceptual oeuvre that uses a wide variety of media: sculpture, photography, video, sound, text and in-situ installations. His constantly evolving body of work offers a subtly ironic perspective of the power relationships that define the political and social context of the contemporary world.

Collages and hybridisations mix the grotesque with the dreamlike, the critical heritage of abstraction with the subversive energy of the popular. His music similarly combines avant-garde influences with shaabi, jazz and hip-hop. Drawing on observations of everyday life, each object tells a brief yet incisive story, between poetry and satire. Hassan Khan’s subtle allegories offer a sharp reflection of the globalised anxiety of our time.

The exhibition “Blind Ambition” brings together a major collection of Hassan Khan’s old, recent and new works for the first time in a French institution, presented in constellations and new remixes. The scenography features a variety of devices and viewpoints, in a landscape specifically designed by the artist for Gallery 3. Partly dedicated to the walkers on Rue Saint Merri, the exhibition addresses the public space directly as the arena of both the predictable and the unpredictable, an important theme in Hassan Khan’s work. This bold project designed for the Centre Pompidou shines a spotlight on the full experimental dimension of artistic research in constant movement.

Born in 1975, Hassan Khan lives and works in Cairo and Berlin. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions in major venues such as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2019), the Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover (2019), the Museum für moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2015), SALT Beyoglu, Istanbul (2012), Queens Museum, New York (2011), and others. He performs in concert at international festivals and recently published a collection of short stories titled Twelve Clues (2016) as well as an Anthology of Published and Unpublished Writings of Hassan Khan (2019). He has also released an album titled Superstructure Ep (2019). Hassan Khan was awarded the Silver Lion at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017).

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