Huma Bhabha

Since the 1990s, Huma Bhabha (b. 1962) has become known for layered and nuanced work that centers on reinvention of the figure and its expressive possibilities. Her formally inventive practice encompasses sculpture, drawings, and photography.

Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Bhabha moved to the United States in 1981 to attend the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, from which she received her BFA in 1985. She later studied at the School of the Arts at Columbia University, New York, from which she received her MFA in 1989. The artist presently lives and works in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Beginning in May 2025, Bhabha will be the first of three artists to be featured in Encounters: Giacometti, a two-person exhibition series at the Barbican Centre, London, that pairs works by contemporary artists with those by Alberto Giacometti. The series of exhibitions is organized in collaboration with the Fondation Giacometti, Paris. In April 2024, Huma Bhabha: Before The End, a large-scale installation commissioned by Public Art Fund, was unveiled at Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York. In 2023, M Leuven, Belgium, presented the solo exhibition Huma Bhabha: LIVIN’ THINGS. The show traveled to MO.CO., Montpellier, France, in November 2023 as Huma Bhabha: A fly appeared, and disappeared. A solo presentation of Bhabha’s work curated by Nicholas Baume was on view at Fundación Casa Wabi, Puerto Escondido, Mexico, from 2022 to 2023. In 2020, the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, England, presented Huma Bhabha: Against Time. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, organized Huma Bhabha: They Live, on view in 2019, and published an accompanying catalogue. An installation of the artist’s work, Huma Bhabha: We Come in Peace, was commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 2018 for the museum’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden.

Previous solo exhibitions of the artist’s work have taken place at prominent institutions such as The Contemporary Austin, Texas (2018); MoMA PS1, New York (2012); Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2012); Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2011); and The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut (2008), among others.

Bhabha’s work has also been included in numerous group exhibitions internationally, including MANZAR: Art and Architecture from Pakistan 1940s to Today, National Museum of Qatar, Doha (2024); The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC (2024); Summer Exhibition 2023, Royal Academy of Art, London (2023); Reclaim the Earth, Palais De Tokyo, Paris (2022); Traces, Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon (2022); Hi Woman (curated by Francesco Bonami), Museo di Palazzo Pretorio, Prato, Italy (2021); NIRIN, 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020); 2019 Yorkshire Sculpture International, Wakefield, England; All the World’s Futures, 56th Venice Biennale (2015); and the 2010 Whitney Biennial.

Bhabha has been the recipient of notable awards, such as the Guna S. Mundheim Fellowship, Berlin Prize, awarded by The American Academy in Berlin (2013); and the Emerging Artist Award, awarded by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut (2008). In 2022, Bhabha was elected as a National Academician by the The National Academy of Design, New York. In 2023, the artist was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York.

In February 2024, two concurrent exhibitions of Bhabha’s work were presented at David Zwirner’s 537 West 20th Street and 34 East 69th Street locations in New York. This marks the gallery’s first presentation of her work since the announcement of her representation in 2022.

Work by the artist is held in significant collections worldwide, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, New York; The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy; Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Long Museum, Shanghai; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Art, University of New Hampshire, Durham; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas; New York Public Library; RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island; Roberts Institute of Art, London; Sharjah Art Foundation, United Arab Emirates; Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Tate, United Kingdom; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut; and the Zhuzhong Art Museum, Beijing, among others.