For over 25 years, Huma Bhabha (b. 1962, Karachi, Pakistan) has been making objects, drawings, and other works that depict the strangeness and vulnerability of the contemporary figure. Her hybridized forms, which borrow from ancient and modern cultural sources alike, exude pathos and humor, going straight to the heart of the most pressing issues of our time. Posing questions about the alien qualities of unfamiliar beings, and the criteria by which lifeforms are considered monsters, Bhabha locates the point where science fiction, horror, modernist form, and archaic expression intersect. The timelessness of her objects is enhanced by her technical mastery and her creative approach to her materials, by which she draws attention to the similarities and differences between natural and manmade substances. In monumental outdoor projects for public spaces, meanwhile, she uses bronze to stage large-scale meditations on nature, war, and civilization’s ancient past and distant future.

Huma Bhabha has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions including MO.CO., Montpellier, France (2023); M Leuven, Belgium (2023); Casa Wabi Foundation, Puerto Escondido, Mexico (2022); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, England (2020); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2019); The Contemporary Austin, Texas (2018); David Roberts Art Foundation (2017); MoMA PS1, Long Island City, New York (2012); Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2012); and Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2011). In 2024, Public Art Fund presented a large-scale installation, Before The End, by the artist at Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York. In 2018, Bhabha was commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, to create a site-specific installation for its Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden. Notable group exhibitions include The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. (2024); Contested Landscapes, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2023); Exercises in Imagination, National Academy of Design, New York (2023); Reclaim the Earth, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2022): Au rendez-vous des amis: Modernism in Dialogue with Contemporary Art from the Sammlung Goetz, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany (2021); NIRIN, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020); Yorkshire Sculpture International, Leeds and Wakefield, England (2019); Carnegie International, 57th Edition, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2018); and All the World’s Futures, 56th Venice Biennale, Italy (2015). Her work is in the permanent collections of institutions including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern, London; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., where her monumental work We Come in Peace (2018) is on view in the museum’s sculpture garden. Bhabha lives and works in Poughkeepsie, New York.