Born in 1963 in Najaf, Iraq, Halim Al Karim lives and works between Denver, Colorado and Dubai.
He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad in 1998, and from the Gerrit Reitveld Academy of Amsterdam in 1999. Fleeing the Iran-Iraq war, he went into exile in the Iraqi desert and took refuge among the Bedouin. A woman of the community initiated him into the secrets of magic and medicinal herbs. At the time he lived in a hole with a perforated roof through which he could observe the shapes appearing in the sky. This “ceiling” was like a camera with which he observed the world. This experience led him into photography. He worked with photographic negatives, scratching them, coloring them, scanning them and drawing on them. Theses stages represent the different layers of time. Halim Al Karim believes that men live in various temporalities simultaneously. War...
Born in 1963 in Najaf, Iraq, Halim Al Karim lives and works between Denver, Colorado and Dubai.
He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad in 1998, and from the Gerrit Reitveld Academy of Amsterdam in 1999. Fleeing the Iran-Iraq war, he went into exile in the Iraqi desert and took refuge among the Bedouin. A woman of the community initiated him into the secrets of magic and medicinal herbs. At the time he lived in a hole with a perforated roof through which he could observe the shapes appearing in the sky. This “ceiling” was like a camera with which he observed the world. This experience led him into photography. He worked with photographic negatives, scratching them, coloring them, scanning them and drawing on them. Theses stages represent the different layers of time. Halim Al Karim believes that men live in various temporalities simultaneously. War is what brought him to shift into another temporality, an escape while having to face fear and anxiety.
In addition to a great number of ongoing projects, he was part of the Saatchi Gallery’s exhibition “Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East” in London in 2009 and has exposed in many solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Dubai, Lebanon, Jordan, the Netherlands, England.
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS :
Arab Museum of Contemporary Art, Doha - Qatar Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE - Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordanie - Farjam Foundation, Dubai, UAE - The George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, Texas, U.S.A - Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA), Paris, France - Royal Association of Fine Arts, Amman, Jordanie - Saatchi Gallery, London, Royaume-Uni - Sovereign Art Foundation, Hong Kong, Chine - Sursock Museum, Beirut, Liban -Victoria et Albert Museum, London, Royaume-Uni - Weng Art Foundation, Krefeld, Allemagne