#59 Omar Kholeif

Omar Kholeif has curated more than 100 exhibitions and written or edited over forty books. Showing their own paintings under their own name, however, meant giving up something they had wanted to keep private. Recorded at Kholeif’s home in East London, this episode of The Art Bystander brings Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar into conversation with the artist, author, curator and broadcaster about the experiences behind their work.

Kholeif is Professor of Global Modern and Contemporary Art History at the Glasgow School of Art and leads its postgraduate programme in curatorial practice, delivered jointly with the University of Glasgow. They previously held senior positions at Sharjah Art Foundation, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Whitechapel Gallery. Their books include Internet_Art: From the Birth of the Web to the Rise of NFTs.

We discuss Fellow Travellers at Tabari in Dubai, which brings five women artists into conversation with Kholeif’s paintings, and the research, friendships and personal decisions behind the exhibition. Kholeif recalls the trickster stories of their childhood, the influence of Jean Fisher and the encounter with Derek Jarman’s Blue that helped them understand why they had to make art.

The conversation also addresses the art world’s fixation on biography, the financial reality behind a public career, and “dreamwork”: protecting the conditions in which people can imagine and create. We conclude with Afterglow in London and paintings made through experiences of physical pain, family separation and survival.

Fellow Travellers: Tabari, DIFC, Dubai, until 10 January 2027.

Afterglow: From the Residue of a Departed Sun, No.9 Frieze Cork Street, London, 30 October–21 November 2026.

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