IMAN ISSA,born 1979 in Cairo, lives and works in Berlin. In 2020 she started a professorship of sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Recent solo and group exhibitions include Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, AT; Neue Galerie Graz, AT; Taxispalais Kunsthalle Tirol, Innsbruck, AT; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, GER; MoMA, New York, USA; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; 21er Haus, Vienna, AT; MACBA, Barcelona, ESP; Perez Art Museum, Miami, USA; 12th Sharjah biennial, ARE; 8th Berlin Biennial, GER; MuHKA, Antwerp, BEL; Tensta Konsthall, Spånga; SWE; New Museum, New York, USA; KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin, GER.
IMAN ISSA’s practice is characterized by a sharp look at the power of display in relation to cultural and academic institutions. While she (born in 1979, lives and works in Vienna and Berlin) often approaches her work experimentally – inviting the viewer to bring their own experience and expectations to the project – her practice is also marked by a precise and clear visual language. Her interest in histories, museums, and collections translates into a method of destabilizing preconceived ideas in respect to knowledge and historical transparency or accuracy by recontextualizing and recombining object-text pairings that suggest other narratives and visions of what we think we know. Whether she is questioning the role of art texts in her Lexicon series (2012–2019) or the relationship between the artist and their work in Proxies, with a Life of Their Own (2019–ongoing), Iman Issa’s work is always a nuanced contemplation of meanings below the surface of the visible. (Kunsthalle Wien, May 2023)
