Catalogue > At random

Palestinian contemporary artist and filmmaker Shadi Habib Allah takes us with him on an unlikely journey of discovery – at gunpoint across the Sinai Peninsula, led by Bedouins who will force us across an unmapped terrain whose only signposts are the small stories they tell about the stakes of living, dying, and moving through this mysterious space. Stories, itineraries, directions, and allegiances become as blurred as the status of the Bedouins themselves, who remain unrecognized non citizens of this no man’s land, through which Habib Allah is led – behind the lines of military checkpoints, off the political, economic, and historical grid, a place where these desert outliers quietly continue their lineage with the help of snakes…

Born in Jerusalem, Palestine in 1977, Shadi Habib Allah received a BFA from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in 2003 and an MFA from Columbia University in 2010. His practice ranges from film, sculpture and drawing to installation. While each projects defines its own terms based on research and physical engagement, a common thread is opening up suggestive modes of navigation across circulation networks of people, technologies, objects, images and economy to examine ideas of use and value and the structures that hold them in place. He was twice awarded 2nd Prize for the Young Artist Award from the A.M. Qattan Foundation, and has attended residencies at Cittadelarte, Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella, Italy and Gasworks in London, England. He was nominated for the Luma Award 2011 and was the 2012 recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award. Habib Allah was a part of the fall residency program at Delfina Foundation in London, in October 2016. Habib Allah’s work has been exhibited at the New Museum Triennial (2015); Art Statements, Art Basel 43 (2012); Palestine c/o Venice, Venice Biennale (2009); the Riwaq Biennale, Ramallah (2009); and In Focus, Tate Modern, London (2007), amongst others. His Films have screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Courtisane Festival Belgium, the 40th Norwegian Film Festival and 32nd Hamburg International Short Film Festival. Recent exhibitions include:I can call this progress to halt, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles, CA (2017); Black Box Screenings O Solitude, Beursschouwburg, Brussels, Belgium (forthcoming 2017);Daga`a, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2017); House of Commons, Portikus, Frankfurt/Main, Germany (2016),Biscuits and Green Sox Maaike, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York, USA (2016)Shadi Habib Allah: 30KG Shine, Rodeo, London, UK (2015) The Verdant, Hacienda, Zurich, Switzerland (2015); Artists Space on Randall Island, Frieze Art Fair, New York, USA (2014); Empire State curated by Norman Rosenthal & Alex Gartenfeld, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, Italy (2013) & Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France (2013); Frozen Lakes, Artists Space, New York, USA (2013);Nouvelles Vagues, curated by Jason Waite and Antonia Alampi, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2013). Shadi Habib Allah lives and works in New York.