Biography

Bassem Yousri (Egyptian, born in Algeria, 1980) is a visual artist, filmmaker, art educator, and text translator working with mixed-media installations in art galleries and public spaces, and experimental and documentary films. Yousri leverages sarcasm and irony to criticise common stereotypes and social taboos, presenting pertinent commentary on contemporary Egyptian socio-politics by focusing on the individual experience. His work also investigates issues related to the relationship between form and representation in the context of the exhibition and public spaces.

Yousri’s work has been widely exhibited both nationally and internationally, including at Haus am Lützowplatz in Berlin; BOZAR in Brussels; the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) in New York; Centre Pompidou and l’Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris; Sharjah Art Foundation; Mathaf: the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha; the State Museum of Egyptian Art in Munich; and IVAM (Institut Valencià d’Art Modern) in Valencia. Yousri received his MFA in painting, drawing, and sculpture from Tyler School of Art – Temple University in Philadelphia in 2009, and his BFA in painting from the School of Fine Arts – Helwan University in Cairo in 2003. He was the recipient of a Work Stipend Grant from the Berlin Senate in 2023, an AFAC (Arab Fund for Arts and Culture) grant in 2012 & 2020, an Art Jameel Research & Practice grant in 2020, an al-Mawred (Culture Resource) grant in 2020, and a Fulbright Arts Grant in 2006. Additionally, he was awarded several artist-in-residence fellowships by various institutions: RAIR Philly USA, 2022; ProHelvetia Switzerland, 2020; Vermont Studio Center in USA, 2013 & 2018; Kultur Kontakt Austria, 2017; Arte East in New York USA, 2016; Sharjah Art Foundation in the UAE, 2016; Kansas State University in USA, 2011; and Kala Art Institute in California USA, 2010.

Yousri was a guest lecturer in many universities and institutions across the world, among which Centre Pompidou in Paris; Sarah Lawrence College in New York; the University of Nebraska in Lincoln; Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon; the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee; Foundation Center for Contemporary Art in Kyiv, Ukraine; and Mathaf: the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar, among others.