Lawrence Abu Hamdan
- Lawrence Abu Hamdan
- Work
58th Venice Biennale, 2019
Lawrence Abu Hamdan (b. 1985, Amman, Jordan), lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon. Lawrence Abu Hamdan is a “Private Ear”. His interest with sound and its intersection with politics originate from his background as a touring musician and facilitator of DIY music. The artists audio investigations has been used as evidence at the UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and as advocacy for organisations such as Amnesty International and Defense for Children International together with fellow researchers from Forensic Architecture. Abu Hamdan received his PhD in 2017 from Goldsmiths College London.
In 2019 Abu Hamdan was nominated for the Turner Prize for his exhibition Earwitness Theater and his performance After Sfx. In 2017 his film Rubber Coated Steel won the Tiger short film award at the Rotterdam International Film festival, The audience award at 25 FPS Festival in Zagreb, and the Dialog Award at European Media Art festival in Osnabruk. In 2016 he won the Nam June Paik Award for new media..
Abu Hamdan is a fellow at the University of Chicago, was 2017/2018 guest of the DAAD Kunstler Program in Berlin and the 2015-17 fellow at the Vera List Centre for Art and Politics at the New School in New York.
His solo presentations have taken place at Witte De With, Rotterdam (2019), Tate Modern Tanks & Chisenhale Gallery, London, Hammer Museum L.A (2018), Portikus Frankfurt (2016), Kunsthalle St Gallen (2015), Beirut in Cairo (2013), The Showroom, London (2012), Casco, Utrecht (2012). His works are part of collections at MoMA, Guggenheim, Van AbbeMuseum, Centre Pompidou and Tate Modern.
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Selected Solo Exhibitions |
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| 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, UK Earwitness Theatre, Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK Lawrence Abu Hamdan: [INAUDIBLE], mor charpentier, Paris, France Lawrence Abu Hamndan, Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK 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, UK |
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Selected Group Exhibitions |
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| 2019 | Tell me about yesterday tomorrow, NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, Munich, Germany Turner Prize Exhibition, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK 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 Unfinished Portrait, Mor Charpentier, Paris, France 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, UK 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, UK The Eighth Climate (What Does Art Do?), Gwangju Biennial, Korea 9th Liverpool Biennial, UK Imperfect Chronology, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK |
| 2015 | British Art Show 8, Hayward Gallery, UK Political Populism, Kunsthalle Wien, Austria Surround Audience, New Museum Triennial, New York, US 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, UK Things Behinds the Sun, Non, Istanbul, Turkey Lexicon VHDG, Leeuwarden, Netherlands Word. Sound. Power, Tate Modern, London, UK The String and the Mirror Lisa Cooley Gallery, New York, US |
| 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, UK 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, UK |
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Performances and Screenings |
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| 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, UK Walled Unwalled, Toronto International Film Festival, Toronto, Canada |
| 2017 | Rubber Coated Steel, Salonul de proiecte, Bucharest, Romania Rubber Coated Steel, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK ICA, London, UK 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, US |
| 2015 | Double Take, 45th International film festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands Isambard Kingston Brunel, Hammer Museum, LA, USA Contra-diction: Speech Against Itself, The New Museum, New York, US Double Take at the Past 100 Years, part 1: WDW Review Offline, Witte de With,Rotterdam, Netherlands |
| 2014 | Contra-diction: Speech Against Itself, Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK 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, UK Contra-diction: Speech Against Itself Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK |
| 2013 | Aural Contract Audio Archive, Tate Modern, London, UK 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, UK Record, Reframe, Resist, V&A, London, UK |
| 2012 | Aural Contract, The Voice Symposium, The Science Museum’s Dana Centre, London, UK Artists’ film club: sound and vision, ICA, London, UK 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, UK |
| 2010 | Forensic Listening, 98 Weeks Project Space, Beirut, Lebanon |
| 2007 | Light Night: Leeds Urban Performance, Leeds, UK |
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Awards |
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| 2019 | Co-winner of the Turner Prize 2019 |
| 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 |
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Institutional Collections |
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| Tate, London, UK | |
| Guggenheim, New York, USA | |
| MOMA, New York, USA | |
| Centre Pompidou, Paris, France | |
| Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands | |
| Arts Council England Collection, UK | |
| Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE | |
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Education |
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| 2016 | Goldsmiths College, University of London, PhD, The Centre for Research Architecture, UK |
| 2010 | Goldsmiths College, University of London, MA, The Centre for Research Architecture, UK |
| 2007 | Middlesex University, BA, Sonic Arts, London, UK |