Born in Pakistan and based between Lahore and Amsterdam, Basir Mahmood (b. 1985) is known for working with video, film, and photography to create poetic sequences that contemplate embedded social and historical terrains of the ordinary, as well as his personal milieu. His narratives often revolve around everyday objects, gestures, situations, and events, exploring the spaces that stretch between identity, distance, memory, the fantastical imagination of others, and a melancholy derived from social injustice, inequity, and the structures of hierarchy. Mahmood examines his own position as an artist by adopting multiple roles: as an author who writes narratives; an initiator who sets in motion collisions of people and improvised scenarios to create original stories; an observer who moves in and out of everyday situations, seeing intimately from within and from without; and a withdrawn subject, such as a disengaged onlooker in a public space.
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His career began with a year-long fellowship at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany, in 2011, after which he participated in artist residencies across five countries, most notably at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam from 2016 to 2017. Over the years, he has received international recognition, securing grants such as the Sharjah Art Foundation Production Programme Grant (2016) and the Stipendium for Established Artists from Mondriaan Fonds (2022-26). His accolades include the Sesc_Videobrasil Residency Prize in Brazil (2013), the Emerging Artist Award from SAI at Harvard University (2015), a shortlist for The Abraaj Group Art Prize (2016), the VISIO Young Talent Acquisition Prize in Italy (2017), the Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize in Portugal (2020), and the Ammodo Tiger Short Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (2021).
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Mahmood’s works have been widely exhibited in institutions and biennials across the world, including The Garden of Eden at Palais de Tokyo, Paris; the inaugural exhibition at the Broad Museum, Michigan State University; the Asia Pacific Triennial (APT 7) at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art; Sharjah Biennial 11; Time of Others at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; the Abraaj Group Art Prize Show in Dubai; the Yinchuan Biennial in China; Contour Biennale 8 in Mechelen; Tableaux Vivants at Fondation Etrillard, Paris; Freedom of Movement at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art; Karachi Biennale 2; Innsbruck International Biennial in Austria; Lahore Biennale 2; EURASIA – A Landscape of Mutability at M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp; Tomorrow is a Different Day at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; VISIO – Artists’ Moving Image in Europe at Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam; International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), Art Directions Programme at Katoenhuis, Rotterdam; Far Away Is Close at Hand in Images of Elsewhere at transmediale 2025, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin; Nebula, organized by Fondazione In Between Art Film at Complesso dell’Ospedaletto, Venice; Silent Times at Kunsthal Extra City, Antwerp; Manzar: Art and Architecture from Pakistan 1940s to Today at the National Museum of Qatar, Doha; and Nebula Expanded at MAXXI Videogallery, Rome.
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In addition to being part of various private collections, Mahmood’s works have been acquired by institutions such as the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap) in France, M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, Fonds régional d’art contemporain (FRAC) Bretagne in France, Qatar Museums in Doha, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Alongside his artistic practice, he regularly teaches and delivers talks at notable art institutions worldwide and served as curator of Stedelijk Museum Video Club x IDFA in Amsterdam in 2018.