Photo by Ralf Hoedt.

Biography

Through the diverse mediums of photography, film and installation, Zarina Bhimji’s practice engages with questions of institutional power and vulnerability, universality and intimacy.

Bhimji’s solo and group exhibitions include Here We Are Today, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg (2019); Lead White, Tate Britain, London (2018); The Fabric of Felicity, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2018); The Place Is Here, Nottingham Contemporary and South London Gallery (2017); Poetics of Relation, Perez Art Museum, Miami (2015); Prospect.3: Notes for Now, New Orleans (2014); Paradise Lost, Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore (2014); Zarina Bhimji, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2012); 29th Bienal de São Paulo (2010); Third Guangzhou Triennial (2008); Zones of Contact, Biennale of Sydney, Sydney (2006); Discreet Energies in 50 Years documenta 1955–2005, Kassel (2005); Fault Lines, Venice Biennale (2003); Poetic Justice, Istanbul Biennale, Istanbul (2003); Art Now, Tate Britain, London (2003); In/Sight, Guggenheim Museum, New York (1996); The Impossible Science of Being, The Photographers’ Gallery, London (1995); The Essential BLACK ART, Chisenhale Gallery, London (1988); The Image Employed: The Use of Narrative in Black Art, Cornerhouse Gallery, Manchester (1987) and From Two Worlds, Whitechapel Gallery, London (1986).

Bhimji’s work is held in public collections at the Tate, London; Art Institute of Chicago; Sharjah Art Foundation; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Government Art Collection, UK; Mead Gallery, Warwick, UK; Perez Art Museum, Miami; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, US; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; Arts Council England, UK; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Nottingham City Museum and Galleries, UK; and New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester, UK. Her work is also part of many private collections.

The artist has received the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2020–2021); Rauschenberg Residency Award (2014) and Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award (1999), and she was a DAAD Artist-in-Residence (2002). She was also nominated for the Turner Prize (2007).

Bhimji received a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London (1986) and an MA in Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London (1989). Born in 1963 in Mbarara, Uganda, the artist lives and works in London.

SAF participation:
Zarina Bhimji Exhibition
March Meeting 2021

Related Content