Adel ABIDIN (Baghdad - Iraq, 1973).
Lives and works between Helsinki and Amman.
He received a bachelor's degree in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad in 2000 and a Master's degree in Media and New Media Art from the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki in 2005, focusing on installation, interactive installations, videos and photography.
His multi-media practice explores the complex relationships between culture, politics, and identity. Using a sharp palette of irony and humor, Abidin gravitates towards social situations dealing with elusive experiences and cultural alienation, using his cross-cultural background to create a distinct visual language often entwined with sarcasm and paradox, while maintaining his ultimately humanistic approach.
Abidin has exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions. Since his representation of Finland at the Nordic Pavilion in the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007) where he represented Finland with Abidin Travels, a mock travel agency that promotes tourist trips to Baghdad, his work has been the subject of major exhibitions worldwide including Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels (2015), 56th Venice Biennale in the Iranian Pavilion (2015), The Glasstress-Gotika, 56th Venice Biennale, International Exhibition, Palazzo Franchetti (2015), 5th Guangzhou Triennial, The Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou (2015), The Pera Museum, Istanbul (2015), Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Canada (2015), Gwangju Museum of Art, South Korea (2014), The Jerusalem Show VII, Jerusalem (2014), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark (2014), MACRO-Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2014), Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2013-2012). He also exhibited his critically-acclaimed video installation Consumption of War at the Iraqi Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011), at the 10th Sharjah Biennale, UAE (2011), MOCCA, Toronto (2011), Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar (2010), 17th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney (2010), MAP, Mobile Art Production, Stockholm, Sweden (2009), 11th Cairo Biennial, Cairo (2008), Screening at MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2008), Art Paris, Grand Palais, Paris (2008), Espace Galley of Contemporary Art, Louis Vuitton, Paris (2008), The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, USA (2008) and The 4th Gothenburg Biennale, Sweden (2007). He has held solo shows at l'Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris) and Kunsthalle Winterthur, Switzerland and has also been selected to participate in a group show in Tokyo at The Mori Art Museum entitled Arab Express in 2012. In 2011, he presented new work in a string of solo exhibitions at Darat al-Funun in Amman, Gallerie Anne de Villepoix in Paris, and Wharf: Centre d'Art Contemporain de Basse, Normandy.
Abidin's work continues to be well represented in both private and public collections including those of the KIASMA- Museum of Contemporary Art, The National Gallery, Helsinki: The National Gallery of Victoria, Mel- bourne, Australia: The Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE: Mathaf- Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar: EMMA- Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo, Finland: Nadour Private Collection: Kamel Lazaar Foundation Collection: The Barjeel Art Foundation, UAE: The Heino Art Foundation, Helsinki: Darat al Funun - The Khalid Shoman Foundation, Amman: HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, UAE: KOC foundation.
