Basim Magdy was born in 1977 in Assiut, Egypt. He lives and works in Basel, Switzerland.
"Basim Magdy is fascinated by science, the unexplained and the extraordinary. He also loves the beauty of words, the musicality of sounds and the harmony of artistic gradations. He is an artist of Egyptian origin who has inherited a taste for monumentalprojects from his ancestors. In paintings, photographs and films, Basim Magdy uses visual fragments of the world and reshapes them like a scientist carrying out experiments to transform existing reality. He then attains new materials with which he raises existential questions and tells more personal stories."1
His work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the world's leading institutions including MoMA The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon; MCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Turin ; New Museum Triennial, New York; MAXXI Musée national des arts du XXIème siècle, Rome; Jeu de Paume, Paris; CAPC Musée d'art contemporain, Bordeaux; Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle, Berlin; Whitechapel Gallery, London; The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Warsaw Museum of Contemporary Art; the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. He has also been invited to the Biennials of Athens, Montreal, Istanbul and the Ateliers de Rennes. He was a finalist for the Future Generation Art Prize in Kiev, Deutsche Bank's Artist of the Year 2016 and has won several awards including Abraaj, Dubai; The New: Vision, CPH:DOX Film Festival, Copenhagen.
1. Excerpt of the press release of the Mulhouse' Kunsthalle available at the address: http://kunsthallemulhouse.com/evenement/un-paon-et-un-hippopotame-se-lancent-dans-un-debat-existentiel-basim-magdy/
