In BASIM MAGDY’S work, we are subjected to the world through a satirical eye. His paintings, photographs, films, and work with poetic text are conceived with a taste for the absurd. They build a universe that has gone off-kilter. Like dreams, elements of a familiar landscape stem out of reality. Past, present and future exist as a single realm and depictions – often of near-extinct animals and cave interiors, discontinued technology and futuristic alternatives, historical figures and modernist structures – take on a surreal aggressive quality.

Magdy’s references abound: they range from a colorful examination of the recording of history to a critical mockery of the concept of sequential time itself. This is highlighted in his fictional work with science and technology, often articulated in the apocalyptic tone of biblical stories. By experimenting with and pushing the boundaries of his chosen media, he crafts an aesthetic sensibility that blends retro and futuristic elements, existing beyond the confines of time as we know it.

Despite a preoccupation with analogue film, narrative sequences are seldom linear. Fragments, gaps, and clues suggest rather than tell a story. His films, in particular, progress like a series of still images permeated with a haunted air that heightens our sense of suspense. In almost all his work, poetic but ambiguous titles add another layer to the narrative. Magdy stretches the boundaries of our imagination to test the logic of the truth which often lies somewhere between reality and fiction.

BASIM MAGDY (b. 1977, Assiut) is an Egyptian artist working across film, photography, text, and installation. Magdy has shown his work in solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland; Frac Bretagne, Rennes, France; Fundación Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, Spain; M HKA Museum of contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium; MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon; La Kunsthalle Mulhouse, France; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; MAXXI National Museum of the 21st Century Arts, Rome; Jeu de Paume, Paris; CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art, Bordeaux; Deutsche Bank KunstHalle, Berlin; Arnolfini, Bristol; South London Gallery, London; Mathaf, Doha; Art in General, New York; State of Concept, Athens; and University Galleries of Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA.

His work has been included in group exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Castello di Rivoli, Torino; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Whitechapel Gallery, London; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; The High Line, New York; and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. Magdy’s work was included in The New museum Triennial, New York; La Biennale de Montreal, Montreal; Seoul Mediacity Biennial; 13th Istanbul Biennial; Sharjah Biennials11 and 13; La Triennale: Intense Proximity, Palais de Tokyo, Paris.

Magdy was shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize, Kiev (2012) and was awarded the Abraaj Art Prize, Dubai (2014); New:Vision Award, CPH:DOX Film Festival, Copenhagen (2014); and the Experimental Award, Curtas Vila do Conde–International Film Festival, Portugal (2015). He was selected as Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year (2016).

His work is in the collections of MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York, Guggenheim, New York, MCA Museum of Contemporary Art and the MoCP Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, as well as Paris’ Centre Pompidou and Fondation Louis Vuitton, the Deutsche Bank Collection, Sharjah Art Foundation, Mathaf: Museum of Modern Arab Art, Doha, ARTER, Istanbul, among others.

Magdy lives and works in Basel.