Witness the innovative, exploratory, and provocative work of internationally renowned artist Wafaa Bilal in his first major museum survey, Indulge Me, now open at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. The exhibition takes a comprehensive look at Bilal’s myriad practices, highlighting the development of his work across decades and placing it in conversation with broader art histories. As the show’s curator, Bana Kattan, explains: “To take such a long view of his practice is to see the ways he has artfully navigated the seemingly incomprehensible relationship between international and interpersonal politics.”
The exhibition is organized into five immersive sections, each of which focuses on a major work from Bilal’s practice. Of note is a reconstruction of a room in Chicago’s FLATFILE Gallery that the artist confined himself to for a monthlong performance in Domestic Tension (2007). As described by the artist, “With a camera mounted to the top of the gun, which was in turn pointed at me, we enabled users around the world to experience what it felt like to shoot an Iraqi. Across 31 days of 24-hour access, I was shot at over 65,000 times from people all over the world.”
Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me also features a large-scale towering video displaying images from Bilal’s yearlong performance 3rdi (2010–11), wherein Bilal surgically implanted a camera into the back of his head that, every minute on the minute, captured photographs; “In a Grain of Wheat: Cultivating Hybrid Futures in Ancient Seed DNA” (2015), Bilal’s response to ISIS’s destruction of the Winged Bull of Nineveh sculpture, or Lamassu; and a commission by the MCA that sees the project activated in a new, sculptural form.
Additionally, Bilal’s “Thumbsat Satellite” (2024), which comprises a golden bust of Saddam Hussein fixed to a satellite, will be launched into Earth’s orbit as part of the exhibition. Developed as a critique of the former Iraqi president’s rumored desire to launch a bust of himself into space, the work also features several in-gallery components, including a model of the satellite and bust and a way for visitors to track the artwork’s location through live-captured images before it is destroyed upon re-entry into the atmosphere.
The exhibition is accompanied by a series of related programs and a major publication, the first to survey multiple projects by Bilal. It is curated by Bana Kattan, former Pamela Alper Associate Curator, with Iris Colburn, Curatorial Associate.
To learn more, visit mcachicago.org/IndulgeMe.
