Nadim Abbas is an installation artist based in Hong Kong, who uses a diverse range of media spanning photography, performance, installation and sculpture. Abbas’s interests mainly surround references from the every day and in particular how urban living conditions have produced specific social trends and subcultures.
Abbas’s practice includes heavy research to inspire works that play on the psychological patterns of familiar objects and the domestic. In his recent work, including ‘Camoufleur’ (VITRINE, London, 2017), Abbas touches on the unlikely correlation between domesticity and warfare. His work also draws thematic inspiration from literature, science and psychology. Abbas uses almost fetishistic behaviour towards collecting of these objects from markets or cheap stores to incorporate into his art or to serve as cues for research.
Nadim Abbas (b. 1980, Hong Kong, China) received his BFA from London’s Chelsea College of Art & Design (2002) and MPhil from the University of Hong Kong Department of Comparative Literature (2006). He was awarded the Hyde Park Art Center Residency, Chicago, USA (2018); Osage Art Foundation and Fundaziun Nairs Hong Kong/Switzerland Cultural Exchange Project (2017); Asian Cultural Council Altius Fellowship; and the HK Arts Development Award (Young Artist / Visual Arts) in 2014. His site-specific public sculpture ‘P-SCAPE’ was commissioned at Tai Kwun Prison Yard, Hong Kong (2018).
He has been exhibited internationally at biennales, institutions, galleries and fairs including: 12th Shanghai Biennale 2018, CN; 7th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art 2017; Munich Biennale 2018, DE; Triennial 2015: Surround Audience, New Museum, New York, US; Busan Biennale 2014, Busan, KOR; Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, NL; NRW Forum, Düsseldorf, DE; HK Arts Centre, HK; UCCA, Beijing, CN; Fundaziun Nairs, Engiadina, CH; Milieu, Bern, CH; Last Tango, Zurich, CH; Antenna Space, Shanghai, CN; VITRINE, London, UK; Wilkinson Gallery, London, UK: inCube Arts, New York; The Armory Show, Armory Focus: China, New York, US; ARTHK11 Special Projects, Hong Kong, CN; and Absolut at Art Basel Hong Kong 2014, Hong Kong, CN.
Abbas was included in Omar Kholeif’s recent publication ‘The Artists Who Will Change the World’ (2018, published by Thames and Hudson) and has a current solo show ‘Poor Toy’ at VITRINE, Basel to coincide with Art Basel (June 2019).