Wafaa Bilal & Bana Kattan in Conversation
Wafaa Bilal, Domestic Tension, 2007. © Wafaa Bilal. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Bryan Derballa
Doors open at 5:45 p.m. Free and open to the public. Registration is not required. Explore the Visiting Artists Program homepage for visitor information, recordings of past events, and more.
Join internationally renowned artist Wafaa Bilal (MFA 2003) and Bana Kattan (MA 2011), curator and associate head of exhibitions at Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, for a conversation about the artist's first major survey, Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA Chicago). Working in performance and sculpture and with online and interactive technologies, Bilal's interdisciplinary practice investigates the dynamic between international and interpersonal politics while highlighting the tension between his home in the United States, which he has deemed the "comfort zone," and the "conflict zone" of Iraq.
This program is presented in partnership with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Visiting Artists Program and the MCA Chicago on the occasion of the MCA Chicago exhibition Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me on view February 1–October 19, 2025. Bilal will also appear on stage at the MCA Chicago for a set of readings with poet Solmaz Sharif, whose 2016 first collection of poetry, Look, was a finalized for the National Book Award for Poetry, as part of the MCA's Politics of Poetics series on Sunday, April 5 at 2:00 p.m.
About the Speakers
Left: Wafaa Bilal. Courtesy of the artist. Right: Bana Kattan. Photo: Maria Ponce
Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal is known intentionally for his online, performative, and interactive works provoking dialogue about international and interpersonal politics. Bilal's work explores tensions between the cultural spaces he occupies. In 2008, the Chicago Tribune named him Artist of the Year. That same year, City Lights published Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life, and Resistance Under the Gun, a book about Bilal's life, and Domestic Tension. His artwork is featured in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar, among others. he holds a bachelor of find arts from the University of New Mexico, a master of fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and was conferred an honorary doctorate from DePauw University. Bilal is currently an arts professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
Bana Kattan, curator and associate head of exhibitions at Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, is a researcher and curator with experience working in the Arab world and the United States. Prior to her time at the Guggenheim, she was the Pamela Alper associate curator at the MCA Chicago and the curator at the New York University Abu Dhabi Art Gallery. She received her master of arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011 and is a recipient of the Barjeel Global Fellowship (2018-19) and a CAA Getty International Program Grant (2015)
This event will be live captioned by Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) services. The auditorium is wheelchair accessible and hearing assisted devices are available. For additional access requests, visit saic.edu/access.