Visiting Artists Program (VAP) Resource Guides

Join internationally renowned artist Wafaa Bilal (MFA 2003) and Bana Kattan (MA 2011), curator and associate head of exhibitions at Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, for a conversation about the artist’s first major survey, Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA Chicago). Working in performance and sculpture and with online and interactive technologies, Bilal’s interdisciplinary practice investigates the dynamic between international and interpersonal politics while highlighting the tension between his home in the United States, which he has deemed the “comfort zone,” and the “conflict zone” of Iraq.

This program is presented in partnership with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Visiting Artists Program and the MCA Chicago on the occasion of the MCA Chicago exhibition Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me on view February 1–October 19, 2025. Bilal will also appear on stage at the MCA Chicago for a set of readings with poet Solmaz Sharif, whose 2016 first collection of poetry, Look, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry, as part of the MCA’s Politics of Poetics series on Saturday, April 5 at 2:00 p.m. 

Left: Wafaa Bilal. Courtesy of the artist. Right: Bana Kattan. Photo: Maria Ponce

Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal is known internationally for his online, performative, and interactive works provoking dialogue about international and interpersonal politics. Bilal’s work explores tensions between the cultural spaces he occupies. In 2008, the Chicago Tribune named him Artist of the Year. That same year, City Lights published Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun, a book about Bilal’s life, and Domestic Tension. His artwork is featured in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar, among others. He holds a bachelor of fine arts from the University of New Mexico, a master of fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and was conferred an honorary doctorate from DePauw University. Bilal is currently an arts professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Artist Website
Wafaa Bilal's Website

Bana Kattan, curator and associate head of exhibitions at Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, is a researcher and curator with experience working in the Arab world and the United States. Prior to her time at the Guggenheim, she was the Pamela Alper associate curator at the MCA Chicago and the curator at the New York University Abu Dhabi Art Gallery.  She received her master of arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011 and is a recipient of the Barjeel Global Fellowship (2018–19) and a CAA Getty International Program Grant (2015). 

Serious Play: The Art of Wafaa Bilal and Tasneem Mandviwala
Citlali Pizarro | American Theatre | November 14, 2023

Domestic Tension: Representation of Muslim artist’s body in online performance*
Seyed Jafar Hejazi | Performing Islam, vol. 9 (1 + 2) | p. 115–12 | December 2021
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login

Wafaa Bilal Explores the Power of Technology
J. Howard Rosier | SAIC Magazine | Fall 2021

Cooking with Artists: Wafaa Bilal
Mina Stone | MoMA Magazine | July 13, 2021

Performing Abjection in Wafaa Bilal’s Domestic Tension*
Hany Ali Abdelfattah | 3L, Language, Linguistics, Literature, vol. 27 (1) | p. 22 - 33 | January 2021
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login

Rites of Passage and Radical Departures*
Sarah Anita Clunis | American Quarterly, vol. 72 (2) | p. 519-535 | June 2020
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login

Artists in Isolation: Wafaa Bilal’s “Domestic Tension”
Rahel Aima | Momus | April 14, 2020

Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me
Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me is the first major survey of internationally renowned artist Wafaa Bilal. On view February 1 – October 19, 2025.

Visiting Artists Program Lecture Recordings from the Archive
SAIC Visiting Artists Program video and audio lecture recordings (1977–present.) Available with SAIC login credentials.

SAIC Digital Collections: Visiting Artists Program
SAIC Visiting Artists Program publicity archive and audio recordings (1977–98).

Maryam Taghavi: Nothing Is
Pia Singh | The Brooklyn Rail | May 2024

Cross-Cultural Existence: A Return to Mona Hatoum at the MCA
Ryan Fazio | New City Art | March 28, 2023

TOP TEN*
Đỗ Tường Linh | Artforum International, vol. 61 (4) | December 2022
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login

THE FIVE: THEY WHO MAPPED THE WAY*
Hassan Sharif, et al | International Gallerie, vol. 24 (2) | p. 8 - 25 | January 2021
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login

Mika Rottenberg’s ‘Easypieces’ Transports You to Parts Unknown: Art Review*
Martha Schwendener | The New York Times | August 29, 2019
*This is a library resource that requires ARTIC login

Permanent Temporariness Exhibition
Malak Abdel-Ghaffar | The Gazelle | April 1, 2018

Chicago Works: Maryam Taghavi مریم تقوی
For the next iteration of its Chicago Works series, the MCA presents the first solo museum exhibition of artist Maryam Taghavi (b. Tehran, Iran; based in Chicago, IL). Previously on view December 20, 2023 – July 14, 2024.

Mona Hatoum: Early Works
Mona Hatoum: Early Works presents a selection of documented performances and video works from the formative stage of Hatoum’s career. Previously on view March 29, 2023 – October 22, 2023.

Based on a True Story…
In Based on a True Story… 20 artists play with fact, fiction, and the grey areas in between. Previously on view February 12, 2022 – August 14, 2022.

Bani Abidi: The Man Who Talked Until He Disappeared
In Bani Abidi: The Man Who Talked Until He Disappeared, Pakistani artist Bani Abidi (b. 1971, lives and works in Karachi and Berlin) critiques those who hold power—and the many ways they wield it. Previously on view September 4, 2021 – June 5, 2022.

Visiting Artists Program Lecture Recordings from the Archive
SAIC Visiting Artists Program video and audio lecture recordings (1977–present.) Available with SAIC login credentials.  

SAIC Digital Collections: Visiting Artists Program
SAIC Visiting Artists Program publicity archive and audio recordings (1977–98)