TALAL AL NAJJAR        طلال النجار

Talal Al Najjar is an artist from the Emirates, based between Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Los Angeles. His practice recontextualizes material culture, artifacts, and imagery through distortion, irony, and material (mis)translation. Through an absurdist lens, he uses defamiliarization and the uncanny to raise new anthropological questions. He produces sculpture, video, sound, painting, and installation, in addition to writing and curating. Primary concerns include simulation, postproduction, image-saturation, counter-futurisms, and the contention of contemporary realities. He received his MFA from ArtCenter College of Design (2023) and his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2021). He currently works in Cultural Engagement and Public Programming at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.

Recent exhibitions include CACHE MEMORY, Secta, Dubai (2026); Not the Season, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2026); Same Air, Tabari Artspace, Dubai (2026); In Good Company, Rizq Art Initiative, Abu Dhabi (2026); Future Loops, Artemis Gallery, Lisbon (2026); What’s Between, Between?, Media Majlis Museum, Doha (2026); MESH & MAYHEM, Tabari Artspace, Dubai (2025); Maknana: Archaeology of New Media Art in the Arab World, Diriyah Art Futures, Riyadh (2025); Relics of Tomorrow, NYU Abu Dhabi Project Space, Abu Dhabi (2025); The Boys Are Alright, Bayt AlMamzar, Dubai (2025); Înca: Presenting the Salam Art Collection, Miraz Art Space, Sulaymaniyah (2025); Petro-Ghareebo: NAUSEA, Tabari Artspace at Art Dubai, Dubai (2024); Tracing The Murmurs, Tabari Artspace at Abu Dhabi Art, Abu Dhabi (2024); CHIAROSCURO, ICD Brookfield Place, Dubai (2024); Symbiotic: Hyperreal (with Ziad Al Najjar), NYU Abu Dhabi Project Space, Abu Dhabi (2023); Postmordial Soup, ICD Brookfield Place, Dubai (2023); The Deluge, The Box Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); and After the End, New Art Dealers Alliance, online (2023). 



Represented by Tabari Artspace Gallery, Dubai