Youssef Nabil
Youssef Nabil (b. 1972, Cairo. Lives and works in Paris and in 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 traditional image making 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.
Youssef Nabil’s international solo and group exhibitions include: in the United States, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Aperture Foundation in New York; the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in both Savannah and Atlanta; the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh; and the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). In Canada , his work has been shown at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto.
In France, exhibitions have taken place at the Centre Pompidou; Maison Rouge – Fondation Antoine de Galbert; the Institut du Monde Arabe; and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris; the Frac Normandie in Sotteville-lès-Rouen; the Friche la Belle de Mai in Marseille; and the Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles. In Belgium, he has exhibited at the Fondation Boghossian and Maison Particulière in Brussels.
In the United Kingdom, his work has been presented at the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, as well as 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 in Bonn, and the Gemäldegalerie Staatliche Museen in 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.
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 in New York, and the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah; in France, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the François 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.
