Majd Abdel Hamid
Majd Abdel Hamid was born in 1988 in Damascus, Syria, and is based between Beirut and Ramallah. He studied at Malmö Art Academy, Sweden (2010), and the International Academy of Art, Palestine (2007–2009). Working across video, installation, drawing, and sculpture, his practice is rooted in slow, performative gestures such as embroidery and cross-stitch, addressing themes of identity and trauma. Recent solo exhibitions include Muscle Memory, CCA Glasgow (2022); 800 meters and a corridor, gb agency, Paris (2022); and A Stitch in Time, Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès, Brussels (2021). His work has been shown at SMAK Ghent, the Sharjah Art Museum, Frac Franche-Comté, Cité Internationale des Arts Paris, Ruya Maps Venice, and the Beirut Art Center. He has participated in residencies including at the Sharjah Art Foundation, Former West (Berlin), and Truth is Concrete (Graz).
FROM THE SERIES SON, THIS IS A WASTE OF TIME
2023–2024
cross-stitch, cotton thread on cotton fabric
Courtesy of the artist
Collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Gift of the artist
Selected artworks on loan courtesy of the artist
White embroidery on a white background is an obvious reference to one of the most important paintings of the European avant-garde, Suprematist Composition: White on White (1918) by Kazimir Malevich, a Polish-born artist raised in Ukraine who became an icon of the "Russian" avant-garde. The small embroideries are also a commentary on labor itself. The titles of the individual canvases, 400 Hours and From November to May (Except February), indicate the amount of time devoted to the making of the work. Embroidery has a rich tradition in Palestine. Each region is famous for its local embroidery designs and colors, by which you can tell where a person comes from. The white thread used by Abdel Hamid indicates the erasure of culture and disappearance of native tradition, which had thrived in the territory of Palestine for hundreds of years.