Baseera Khan
Baseera Khan is a New York-based visual artist interested in materials, color, and their economies. From public art installation to sculpture, painting to performance and music, Khan collages the effects of these relationships to labor and family structures, religion, and spiritual well-being. Khan has performed and exhibited at several locations in the past years sharing this diverse practice.
Currently, Khan is included in Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now, a collection exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, curated by Lauren Hinkson. In 2025, Khan presented a solo exhibition with Niru Ratnam Gallery, London, U.K., and completed New Leaf, a permanent public art commission for HELP USA in Brooklyn, New York. In 2023, High Line Art, New York, commissioned Khan's first large-scale outdoor sculpture, Painful Arc II, Shoulder High, which remained on view through 2024. Khan also presented a solo exhibition at 10 & Zero Uno, Venice, Italy (2024).
Solo institutional exhibitions include MassArt, Boston, MA (2026); the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2023); the Brooklyn Museum, New York (2021–22); and a touring solo exhibition organized by the Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, Houston, TX, which traveled to the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH (2022–23). Earlier solo exhibitions include Simone Subal Gallery, New York (2019), Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, Colorado (2018) and Participant Inc, New York (2017).
Recent group exhibitions include the Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany (2026); Ruttkowski;68, New York (2026); Sargent's Daughters, New York (2026); Paul Robeson Gallery, Rutgers University, New Jersey (2025); 12 Gates, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2025); Patel Brown, Toronto, Canada (2025); and the North Carolina Museum of Art (2024). Earlier exhibitions include the Pop South Asia: Artistic Explorations in the Popular, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE and Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, India (2022-23); the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (2021); the New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana (2020); the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism, Munich, Germany (2019); Jenkins Johnson Projects, Brooklyn, New York (2019); Simone Subal Gallery, New York (2018); Sculpture Center, New York (2018); the Aspen Art Museum (2017).
Khan's performance work has premiered at the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Art POP Montreal International Music Festival. Residencies include Plop, London, U.K. (2024); Lux Art Institute, San Diego (2021); the Wexner Center Film/Video Studio Residency (2020); a six-week performance residency at The Kitchen, New York (2020); Pioneer Works (2018–19); Abrons Arts Center (2016–17); an International Travel Fellowship to Jerusalem and Ramallah through apexart (2015); and the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture (2014).
Khan is the recipient of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Michael Richards Award for Visual Art (2024), was honored as the Hirshhorn Museum Gala Artist Honoree (2023) and 50th Anniversary Honoree (2024), and received the Artist Prize on the MTV/Smithsonian Channel docuseries The Exhibit (2022–23). Additional honors include the UOVO Art Prize (2020), the BRIC Colene Brown Art Prize, the Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant (2019), and awards from NYSCA/NYFA and Art Matters (2018).
Khan's work is held in the permanent collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Walker Art Center, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. Khan received an MFA from Cornell University (2012) and a BFA from the University of North Texas (2005). Khan is currently teaching as an Adjunct Associate, for MFA programs at Columbia University and School of Visual Arts in New York.
Selected Works
Baseera Khan, Braidrage, (performance, duration variable, 2017 – ongoing)
Made in 2017 of 99 Holds, indoor rock-climbing wall made from 99 unique poured dyed resin casts of the corners of the artist's body—embedded with wearable gold and silver cuban chains, hair, and hypothermia blankets—harnesses made from climbing rope braided into chains, charcoal, large synthetic and real hair braids, dimensions variable
Baseera Khan, Chandelier [Feat. Yellow], (60 × 60 × 60 inches (152.40 × 152.40 × 152.40 cm), acrylic, insulation foam, wood, disco ball motor, metal carabiner, cotton, marigold dye, 2021)
Baseera Khan, Chandelier [Feat. Yellow], (60 × 60 × 60 inches (152.40 × 152.40 × 152.40 cm), acrylic, insulation foam, wood, disco ball motor, metal carabiner, cotton, marigold dye, 2021)
Baseera Khan, Red Poppy Peace in Sacrifice and Renewal, (52 × 35 ¾ inches (132.08 × 90.81 cm); 57 ½ × 41 ½ inches (146.05 × 105.41 cm) (framed); ink, crude oil, acrylic and oil paint on paper, 2024)
Baseera Khan, Thrumming Red (Red Paintings), (66 × 40 inches (167.64 × 101.60 cm), oil paint on wood panel, 2025)
Holding, Blue Histories, 2025
oil on wood panel, Lucite artist frame,
14 x 11 x 1.5 inches
Bow, Rose Gold, 2025
oil on wood panel, Lucite artist frame
14 x 11 x 1.5 inches