Adel Abidin

Adel Abidin explores concepts of cultural alienation, gender and war. His humorous approach plays with stereotypical occidental ideas of the East, resulting in artworks that echo the artist’s own sarcastic remarks. Marginalization and war play an important role in Abidin’s work; he uses these concepts to subvert cultural ideologies in a precarious and paradoxical world. Working with film Abidin is able to address these absurd yet common scenarios that are often experienced in this age of substantial diaspora and communicate them directly to his audience. He acknowledges and thus questions the contradictions in the many social frameworks that one is exposed to when living in exile.

Adel Abidin was born in Baghdad in 1973 works with installations, video and photography. After graduating from the Academy of fine Arts in Baghdad in 2000 with a degree in Painting, he moved to Finland and received an MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts, in Helsinki, where he is now based. He is recognized through numerous international exhibitions, including the Finnish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, (2007); Kiasma (Museum of Contemporary Art), Helsinki, (2010); his work was commissioned for the inaugural exhibition Told/Untold/Retold at Mathaf Museum, Doha, (2010). In 2011 he will exhibit his work at the Sharjah Biennale, the Iraqi Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and hold a major show at the Anne De Villepoix gallery in Paris.

For more information on Abidin’s work please visit his website at
http://www.adelabidin.com

See also:

> Program
> Land and Dignity
> The Time That Remains