Huma Bhabha | M Leuven

Huma Bhabha’s oeuvre centers around the figure; a vessel for beauty and decay, past and future. Bhabha’s exhibition at M—the first at a Belgian museum—will span the last 15 years with a selection of her sculptures and drawings.

During this lecture, Bhabha will guide you through her work and process. Rooted in the Romantic, she draws from a wide range of references spanning the history of art and contemporary culture. Science fiction merges with Modernist sculpture, Egyptian reliquary, and Greek kouroi. Her sculptures are often formed from quotidian materials such as cork, Styrofoam, clay, and wood, as well as cast in bronze. As her reconfigured references overlap and multiply, they become an avenue to explore place, memory, war, and the pervasive histories of colonialism.

This lecture will offer a unique opportunity to hear from the artist before visiting the exhibition. This lecture is the start of the opening festivities for the exhibition at M. Afterwards you are welcome to discover the work up close, with free access to the museum and the possibility to get a drink before or after your visit.

The exhibition is a collaboration with MO.CO. Montpellier Contemporain, where Huma Bhabha's work will be on display from November 2023.

About Huma Bhabha

Huma Bhabha lives and works in Poughkeepsie, New York. She moved from Karachi to the United States in 1981 to pursue her studies at the Rhode Island School of Design, and then Columbia University. She garnered international acclaim in 2018 for ‘We Come in Peace’, two colossal bronze figures that she installed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s roof garden.

Bhabha has, amongst others, exhibited at the Sydney Biennale (2020), ICA Boston (2019), the Venice Biennale (2015), MoMA PS1 (2012), the Whitney Biennale (2010) and the Gwangju Biennale (2008). In 2020, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art organised her first major retrospective in Europe.