Overview

This is the first international monograph on Belgian-based artist with Iranian heritage Sanam Khatibi. Khatibi’s timeless and allegorical works are set in fantastical, utopian landscapes where humans and beasts exhibit little emotional or physical distinction. She plays with ambivalence to juxtapose dualities such as animal versus human, past versus present, and cruelty versus seduction. Her subjects live on their impulses in alluring, exotic landscapes. They are ambiguous in their relationship to power, violence, sensuality, and each other. The recurrent themes in her work question our connection to chaos, destruction, excess, loss of control, bestiality, domination, and submission. Wildlife and animals are an integral part of her practice, and her subjects are often depicted within the same plane as the flora and fauna. Channeling magical naturalism through paintings, embroideries, tapestries, sculptures, and installations, Khatibi both exalts and cautions against the fine line between triumph and failure, peace and brutality, and, ultimately, civilization and destruction. Khatibi’s recent solo shows include Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2022); Groeninge Museum, Bruges (2021); Kunsthal Gent (2020); Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels (2019); Musée d’art de la Province de Hainaut, BPS22, Charleroi (2019); and P.P.O.W, New York (2019). Her work has also been part of institutional group shows at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (2022); Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort (2022); Centraal Museum, Utrecht (2021); S.M.A.K., Ghent (2021); Kortrijk Triennial (2021); Kunstverein Dresden (2020); Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M HKA) (2020); and 16th Istanbul Biennial (2019).

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Sanam Khatibi lives and works between Brussels and Paris. Her work explores animality and primal impulses, focusing on our relationship to power structures and the duality of triumph and failure.

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