Biography
Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal is known internationally for his on-line performative and interactive
works provoking dialogue about international and interpersonal politics. Bilal’s work explores
tensions between the cultural spaces he occupies —his home in the comfort zone of the U.S. and
his consciousness in the conflict zone in Iraq. For his 2007 installation, Domestic Tension, Bilal
spent a month in FlatFile Galleries where people could shoot him via a remote-access paintball
gun. The Chicago Tribune called it “one of the sharpest works of political art to be seen in a long
time”—naming him 2008 Artist of the Year. That year, City Lights published Shoot an Iraqi:
Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun about Bilal’s life and Domestic Tension. Using his own
body as a medium, Bilal continued to challenge the public’s comfort zone with projects like 3rdi
and and Counting…. Bilal’s work, Canto III, was included as part of the Iranian pavilion at the
2015 Venice Biennale. Bilal’s current work 168:01 brings awareness to cultural destruction and
promotes the collective healing process through education and audience participation. His work
can be found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los
Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; MATHAF: Arab Museum
of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; amongst others. He holds a BFA from the University of New
Mexico, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was conferred an honorary
PhD from DePauw University. Bilal is currently an Arts Professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the
Arts.