Name Omar Kholeif | Role Writer | |
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Books Jeddah Childhood Circa 1994 | ||
Art dubai interviews omar kholeif
Omar Kholeif is an artist, curator, writer and editor. His work focuses on issues of narrative and geography in art. He is the Manilow Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and teaches visual arts and art history at the University of Chicago. Previously, he was Curator at the Whitechapel Gallery, Senior Editor at Ibraaz Publishing and Senior Visiting Curator at HOME.
Contents
Curator's Tour: Omar Kholeif on Emily Jacir: Europa
Career
Kholeif was born in Cairo, Egypt and now lives in Chicago, United States. Previously he was Curator at the Whitechapel Gallery, Senior Visiting Curator at Cornerhouse and HOME, Manchester, Curator at FACT, London and Senior Editor at Ibraaz Publishing. His work focuses on issues of narrative and geography in contemporary accelerated culture. He has curated major exhibitions nationally and internationally including the Cyprus Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, Abraaj Group Art Prize at Art Dubai and Armory Focus: Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean at the Armory Show, New York. In 2015 he took up the post of Manilow senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Kholeif has written extensively for publications such as The Guardian, Frieze, Wired and Huffington Post. His books include: Vision, Memory and Media (2010), Jeddah Childhood circa 1994 (2014) and You Are Here: Art After the Internet (2014) which was reviewed in Artforum by Douglas Coupland as the 'smartest book on this topic'.
In 2014, he was voted one of the 50 most powerful people in the Middle Eastern art world by Canvas Magazine, one of the 100 most powerful people in the art world by ArtLyst and one of eight curators to watch by Artsy.