bio

biography

Baseera Khan is a New York-based visual artist interested in materials, color, and their economies. The effects of these relationships to labor and family structures, religion, and spiritual well-being allows Khan to work within multiple genres. From public art installation to sculpture, painting to performance and music, Khan has mounted several solo exhibitions in the past years sharing a diverse body of work. Their public art commission for The High Line Park in New York City, "Painful Arc II, Shoulder High," was installed from 2023-24 by the Standard Hotel. Khan mounted a few museum solo exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. 2023, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York 2021-22, and mounted a solo touring exhibition for Moody Arts Center for the Arts, Rice University, Houston, Texas, and the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio 2022-2023. Recently, Khan is preparing for their first solo exhibition in London at Niru Ratnam Gallery, a public art commissioned by Help USA, and a group exhibition with Paul Robeson Gallery at Rutgers University (2025). They had solo exhibitions at Simone Subal Gallery in New York City and 10 & Zero Uno in Venice, Italy in 2024. Khan has exhibited in numerous locations such as Jupiter Gallery, NY (2024), North Carolina Museum of Art (2024), the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (2021), New Orleans Museum of Art (2020), Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism, Munich, Germany, Jenkins Johnson Projects, Brooklyn, NY (2019), Sculpture Center, NY (2018), Aspen Museum (2017), Participant Inc. (2017). Khan's performance work has premiered at several locations including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Art POP Montreal International Music Festival. Khan completed a 6-week performance residency at The Kitchen NYC (2020) and was an artist in residence at Pioneer Works (2018-19), Abrons Art Center (2016-17), was an International Travel Fellow to Jerusalem/Ramallah through Apexart (2015) and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2014). Khan won an Artist Prize for the MTV/Smithsonian Channel TV docu-series, called The Exhibit in 2022-23. Khan is also a recipient of the UOVO Art Prize (2020), BRIC Colene Brown Art Prize, and the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant (2019), NYSCA/NYFA and Art Matters (2018). Their works are part of several public permanent collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim, Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Walker Art Center, MN, and the New Orleans Museum of Art, LA. Khan received an M.F.A. from Cornell University (2012) and a B.F.A. from the University of North Texas (2005).

“I make work to discuss materials and their economies, the effects of this relationship to labor and family structures, religion, or spirituality, to reveal the intersections of power and culture. In my opinion, material creates identity, not the other way around. The pressure of identity is too much and too constructed, so I try not to reinstate these colonial labels in my work, instead try to emancipate them by my use of form and color, performance - I abstract identity with multiple ways of working. My life's work is dedicated to the development of my own legacy, on my own terms, with the use of architecture, fashion, painting, photography, textiles, and music, parody, sculpture, and performance, I manifest my femme native-born Muslim American experience.”