Youssef Nabil

Youssef Nabil (b. 1972, Cairo, Egypt; lives and works between Paris and New York) develops hand-colored silver prints that draw from the aesthetics of early Technicolor film and classic studio portraiture. His work subverts Orientalist tropes, transforming images into poetic dreamscapes—visions of Egypt not as it is, but as it might have been. Shaped by memory, longing, and cultural identity, these dreamlike compositions blur the line between personal and collective histories, offering a nuanced reflection on exile, beauty, and belonging.

Nabil’s international solo and group exhibitions include, in the United States, Now Showing: Youssef Nabil’s I Saved My Belly Dancer, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles (2025); Harlem Postcards Fall/Winter 2014–15, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2014); Nazar, Photographs from the Arab World, Aperture Foundation, New York (2005); The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C. (2015); Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World, Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. (2009); I Live Within You, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Savannah (2010) and Atlanta (2009); Far from Home, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh (2008); and Dream Light, Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Miami (2016). In Canada, his work has been shown in Home Ground: Contemporary Art from the Barjeel Art Foundation, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (2015).

In France, exhibitions have taken place in Paris at the Centre Pompidou, Hips Don’t Lie (2017); the Maison Rouge – Fondation Antoine de Galbert, Sous Influences, Arts Plastiques et Psychotropes (2013); the Institut du Monde Arabe, Youssef Nabil (2019); and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Retrospective (2012); in Sotteville-lès-Rouen at Frac Normandie, Portrait of the Artist as an Alter (2016); in Marseille at the Friche la Belle de Mai, Ici, Ailleurs (2013); and in Arles at the Rencontres de la Photographie, Pour un Moment d’Éternité (2003). In Belgium, he has exhibited at the Fondation Boghossian, Timeless Gazes: From Pharaohs to the Present Day (2025), and Maison Particulière in Brussels (2022).

In the United Kingdom, his work has been presented multiple times at the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, as well as at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Newcastle. In Germany, exhibitions have been held at the Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK) in Frankfurt, the Kunstmuseum Bonn, and the Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. In Spain, his work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) in Barcelona, the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville, and the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM) in Valencia.

In Italy, Nabil has exhibited at the Villa Medici in Rome, the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, Palazzo Grassi in Venice, and at the 53rd Venice Biennale with Unconditional Love. In Qatar, his work has been shown at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha; in Mexico, at the Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City; and in Mali, at the 5èmes Rencontres de la Photographie Africaine in Bamako, where he was awarded the Seydou Keïta Prize.

In 2020–2021, Nabil held his first retrospective exhibition at Palazzo Grassi in Venice, titled Once Upon a Dream. In 2026, he became the first contemporary artist to exhibit in the Orientalist galleries at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, with De rêver encore.

Youssef Nabil’s work is part of numerous international collections, including, in the United States, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah; in France, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the Pinault Collection, and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris; in Switzerland, the UBS Art Collection in Zurich; in the United Kingdom, the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London; in Angola, the Sindika Dokolo Foundation in Luanda; in Greece, the Photography Museum in Thessaloniki; in Qatar, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha; in the United Arab Emirates, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; and in Mexico, the Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City.