Lawrence Abu Hamdan
- Lawrence Abu Hamdan
- Work
Air Conditioning, Exhibition view, MUDAM, Luxembourg, 2024
Lawrence Abu Hamdan (b.1985) is a Lebanese-British independent investigator or Private Ear. His investigations focus on sound and have been used as evidence at the UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, as advocacy for organizations such as Amnesty International and Defence for Children International and presentations at the UN security council.
Abu Hamdan received his PhD in 2017 from Goldsmiths College University of London and in 2021 completed a professorship at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz where he developed his research airpressure.info. Past fellowships have been held at the University of Chicago, in 2017/18 he was a guest of the DAAD artist in Berlin program and from 2015/17 a fellow at the Vera List Centre for Art and Politics at the New School in New York.
Abu Hamdan was exhibited at the 12th Berlin Biennale, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, the 58th Venice Biennale, the 11th Gwanju Biennale, the 13th and 14th Sharjah Biennial, Witte De With, Rotterdam, Tate Modern Tanks, Chisenhale Gallery, Hammer Museum L.A and the Portikus Frankfurt. His works are in the collections of MoMA, New York, Guggenheim, New York, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Kunsthaus Zurich, and Tate Modern, London. Abu Hamdan’s work has been awarded the 2019 Edvard Munch Art Award, the 2016 Nam June Paik Award for new media and in 2017 his film Rubber Coated Steel won the Tiger short film award at the Rotterdam International Film festival. For the 2019 Turner Prize Abu Hamdan, together with nominated artists Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo and Tai Shani, formed a temporary collective in order to be jointly granted the award.
Selected Solo Exhibitions | |
| 2025 | Someone Chewing, Sfeir-Semler Gallery Karantina, Beirut, Lebanon Zifzafa, MUNCH, Oslo, Norway (forthcoming) |
| 2024 | Air Conditioning, MUDAM – Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg |
| 2023 | Aux Frontières de L'audible, FRAC, Besançon, France Cross-Border Crimes, MUAC – UNAM Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico Walled Unwalled and Other Monologues, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA 45th Parallel, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland |
| 2022 | cross border crimes & the witness-machine complex, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany 45th Parallel, Spike Island, Bristol, United Kingdom The Sonic Image, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE |
| 2021 | São Paulo Art Biennial, Brazil Dirty Evidence, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden Green Coconuts and Other Inadmissible Evidence, Vienna Secession, Vienna, Austria |
| 2020 | Artist's Rooms: Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, UAE |
| 2019 | The Voice Before the Law, Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, Germany Earwitness Theatre, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia Natq, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon Earwitness Theatre, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri, USA Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, Netherlands |
| 2018 | Walled Unwalled, daadgalerie, Berlin, Germany Walled Unwalled, conceived for the Tanks, Tate Modern, Bankside, London, United Kingdom Earwitness Theatre, Chisenhale Gallery, London, United Kingdom Lawrence Abu Hamndan, Chisenhale Gallery, London, United Kingdom Hammer Projects: Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles |
| 2016 | Contra-Diction: Speech Against Itself, Le Centre Pompidou, Paris, France Earshot, Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany |
| 2015 | Taqiyya, Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Switzerland The All-Hearing, Laveronica, Arte Contemporanea, Sicily, Italy |
| 2014 | Tape Echo, part of positions, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands |
| 2013 | Tape Echo, Beirut in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt |
| 2012 | Aural Contract: The Whole Truth, Casco Utrecht, Netherlands Aural Contract: The Freedom of Speech Itself, the Showroom, London, United Kingdom |
Selected Group Exhibitions | |
| 2024 | Survival in the 21st Century, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany |
| 2023 | The Assault of the Present on the Rest of Time, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany In the Heart of Another Country: The Diasporic Imagination Rises, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE So it appears, Institute for Contemporary Art, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA |
| 2022 | Toronto Biennial of Art, City of Toronto, Canada 12th Berlin Biennale, Berlin, Germany Manifesta 14, Prishtina, Kosovo 45th Parallel, Spike Island, Bristol, United Kingdom In The Heart of Another Country, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Germany |
| 2021 | INFORMATION (Today), Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland |
| 2020 | Readings From Below, Times Art Center Berlin, Germany Agency of Undertones, Trafó Gallery, Budapest, Hungary Art in the Age of Anxiety, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE We Never Sleep, The Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany Enter the Void, Kunsthalle Mainz, Mainz, Germany NIRIN, The 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020), Sydney, Australia QALQALAH قلقلة : plus d’une langue, Centre régional d'art contemporain, CRAC OCCITANIE / Pyrénées-Méditerranée, Sète, France The Future of Silence: When your tongue vanishes, Nam June Paik Art Center, Korea |
| 2019 | Tell me about yesterday tomorrow, NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, Munich, Germany Turner Prize Exhibition, Turner Contemporary, Margate, United Kingdom May You Live In Interesting Times, 58th Venice Biennale 2019, Italy Making New Time, Sharjah Biennale 14, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE Crack Up - Crack Down, Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia |
| 2018 | Public Art Munich 2018, Munich, Germany Of Other Spaces, 2018 Abraaj Group Art Prize Exhibition, Art Dubai, Dubai, UAE 74 million million million tons, SculptureCenter, New York, USABiennale de l'Image en Mouvement 2018: The Sound of Screens Imploding, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva, Switzerland BLIND SPOT, LE CAP, Centre d’arts plastiques de Saint-Fons, Daint-Fons, France He cannot speak for himself [Can´t Speak for Itself], La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain |
| 2017 | From Ear to Ear to Eye: Sounds and Stories from Across the Arab World, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, United Kingdom Accentisms, Taxispalais, Kunsthalle Tirol, Innsbruck Austria Parades for FIAC, Paris, France The Image of War, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden Negotiating the Future: 2017 Asian Art Biennial, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan Where do I end and you begin – On Secularity, Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art 2017, Gothenburg, Sweden Stealing from the West, Academy of the Arts of the World, Cologne, Germany Manipulate the World, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden Forensic Architecture – towards an investigative aesthetic, MACBA, Barcelona, Spain Heart of the Tin Man, M Woods, Beijing, China Blind Date, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon Tamawuj, Sharjah Biennial 13, Sharjah, UAE Contour Biennale 8 Polyphonic Worlds: Justice as Medium, Kunstcentrum NONA, Mechelen, Belgium Strange Attractor, Ballroom Marfa, Texas, USA We Are Everywhere, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, USA |
| 2016 | Nam June Paik award exhibition, Museum Folkwang Essen, Germany If All Relationships Were to Reach Equilibrium, Then This Building Would Dissolve, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, United Kingdom The Eighth Climate (What Does Art Do?), Gwangju Biennial, Korea 9th Liverpool Biennial, United Kingdom Imperfect Chronology, Whitechapel Gallery, London, United Kingdom |
| 2015 | British Art Show 8, Hayward Gallery, United Kingdom Political Populism, Kunsthalle Wien, Austria Surround Audience, New Museum Triennial, New York, USA Accented, Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE |
| 2014 | Contaro, Al Hondiga, Bilbao, Spain Social Factory, 10th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, China Forms of Distancing: Representative Politics and the Politics of Representations, Sterchicher, Herbst Festival, Austria Don’t You Know Who I Am? Art After Identify Politics, M HKA, Antwerp, Belgium Transfigurations: Curatorial and Artistic Research in an Age of Migrations, MACBA, Barcelona, Spain Forensis, Hause Kulturen, Berlin, Germany Ten Thousand Wiles and Tricks, Meeting Point 7, Beirut Art Centre, Beirut, Lebanon Don’t Embarrass the Bureau, Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden Word. Sound. Power, KHOJ International Artists’ Association, New Delhi, India |
| 2013 | Tensta Museum, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden Schizophonia, Cac la Synagogue de Delme, France 4 days April 2013, Arnolfini, Bristol, United Kingdom Things Behinds the Sun, Non, Istanbul, Turkey Lexicon VHDG, Leeuwarden, Netherlands Word. Sound. Power, Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom The String and the Mirror Lisa Cooley Gallery, New York, USA |
| 2012 | Desire Lines, Espai Cultural de Caja Madrid, Barcelona, Spain Taipei Biennial, Taipei, Taiwan How Much Fascism? Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp, Belgium Soundworks, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, United Kingdom Alternative 2012: Materiality, Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk, Poland |
| 2011 | Survival Kit, Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Latvia |
| 2010 | Homeworks 5: A Forum on Cultural Practices, Aural Contract Artist Talk, Beirut, Lebanon |
| 2009 | A Time to Make Ten Shoes, Santarcangelo 39, Italy |
| 2007 | Lawrence Abu Hamdan & Will Saunders Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, United Kingdom |
Performances and Screenings | |
| 2022 | Daght Jawi: a live-audiovisual essay, L’Art Rue, Planetarium Cité des Sciences, Tunis, Tunisia |
| 2019 | Walled Unwalled, Museum Of Contemporary Art Chicago, USA Walled Unwalled, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Funkhaus studios, Rotterdam, Netherlands After SFX, International Film Festival Rotterdam, WORM, Rotterdam, Netherlands |
| 2018 | Walled Unwalled, 36th Torino Film Festival, Torino, Italy Bird Watching, Durub al Tawata by Tarek Abou Al Fatouh, The Auditorium, Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, UAE After SFX, The Tanks, Tate Modern, Bankside, London, United Kingdom Walled Unwalled, Toronto International Film Festival, Toronto, Canada |
| 2017 | Rubber Coated Steel, Salonul de proiecte, Bucharest, Romania Rubber Coated Steel, Whitechapel Gallery, London, United Kingdom ICA, London, United Kingdom Rubber Coated Steel, Asia Focus: Performing Arts at MMCA (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art), Seoul, South Korea Sound Bleed, Portikus XXX summer screening program, Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany Rubber Coated Steel, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands Listening Space: Bird watching, documenta 14, Athens Conservatoire, Athens Rubber Coated Steel, New York Film Festival, New York, USA |
| 2016 | Rubber Coated Steel, Union Docs, New York, USA |
| 2015 | Double Take, 45th International film festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands Isambard Kingston Brunel, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA Contra-diction: Speech Against Itself, The New Museum, New York, USA Double Take at the Past 100 Years, part 1: WDW Review Offline, Kunstinstituut Melly (formerly known as Witte de With), Rotterdam, Netherlands |
| 2014 | Contra-diction: Speech Against Itself, Cornerhouse, Manchester, United Kingdom The All-Hearing, 44th International film festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands Received Pronunciations, Radio Web MACBA, Barcelona, Spain Contra-diction: Speech Against Itself, Whitechapel Gallery, London, United Kingdom Contra-diction: Speech Against Itself Whitechapel Gallery, London, United Kingdom |
| 2013 | Aural Contract Audio Archive, Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom Public Sound 3, The Speaking Subject, de Player, Rotterdam, Netherlands Aural Contract, Meeting Point 7, M HKA, Antwerp, Belgium Isambard Kingston Brunel, Iaspis, Stockholm, Sweden Mountain Language, Arnolfini, Bristol, United Kingdom Record, Reframe, Resist, V&A, London, United Kingdom |
| 2012 | Aural Contract, The Voice Symposium, The Science Museum’s Dana Centre, London, United Kingdom Artists’ film club: sound and vision, ICA, London, United Kingdom The Pessoptimist Marathon with Marwa Arsanios, The Jerusalem Show, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Palestine & Beirut, Lebanon |
| 2011 | Audio Infrastructures, Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk, Poland Model Court: An Ecology of the Courtroom, Chisenhale Gallery, London, United Kingdom |
| 2010 | Forensic Listening, 98 Weeks Project Space, Beirut, Lebanon |
| 2007 | Light Night: Leeds Urban Performance, Leeds, United Kingdom |
Awards | |
| 2023 | Bill Douglas Award for International Short Film |
| 2022 | Audience Prize of the Toronto Biennial |
| 2019 | Co-winner of the Turner Prize 2019 Edvard Munch Art Award |
| 2018 | The Abraaj Group Art Prize 20th Baloise Art Prize |
| 2017 | Shortlisted for the 2017 Jarman Award Dialog Award 2017 Frieze Tate Fund Acquisitions Tiger Award for Short Films |
| 2016 | International Nam June Paik Award |
Public Collections | |
| Arts Council England Collection, London, UK Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE Centre Pompidou, Paris, France Guggenheim, New York, USA Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland MoMA, New York, USA MUDAM, Luxembourg The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece Tate, London, UK Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands | |
Education | |
| 2016 | Goldsmiths College, University of London, PhD, The Centre for Research Architecture, United Kingdom |
| 2010 | Goldsmiths College, University of London, MA, The Centre for Research Architecture, United Kingdom |
| 2007 | Middlesex University, BA, Sonic Arts, London, United Kingdom |