فير زملر غاليري Sfeir-Semler Gallery

Tarik Kiswanson

For two decades, Tarik Kiswanson has engaged with themes of loss, memory, and regeneration through an expansive interdisciplinary practice. His works are shaped by legacies of displacement and transformation, which are essential to both their form and the modes of sensing they produce. While retaining an attachment to the intimate and personal, his practice extends to address universal concerns and broader historical, political and social narratives of rupture and reconstruction. His art engages with the architecture of the spaces in which it is exhibited, transcending conventional modes of representation to create holistic experiences. Read more

Tarik Kiswanson’s practice engages with material culture and the mnemonic capacities of objects, interrogating the enduring aftermath of war and movement across varied historical and geopolitical contexts. His projects examine how artifacts produced during or in the aftermath of trauma can be recontextualized as sites of resilience and collective historical consciousness. By exploring the language of objects, Kiswanson’s archaeology of memory gives voice to the unspeakable. Rather than reconciling the contradictions of our History, he makes them visible, underscoring their reverberations across generations and geographies.

Tarik Kiswanson comes from a Palestinian family that was exiled from Jerusalem, by way of Tripoli and Amman, before finally settling in Halmstad, Sweden, where he was born in 1986. He spent ten years in London, where he studied art, before relocating to Paris, where he has lived and worked since 2010. Kiswanson received an MFA from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris (2014) and a BFA from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London (2010). His work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions all over the world, most recently at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (2025), Fundação Iberê Camargo (2025), Kunsthalle Portikus (2024), Bonniers Konsthall (2023), Salzburger Kunstverein (2023), Museo Tamayo (2023) and Carré d’Art-Musée d’art contemporain (2021). He has participated in group exhibitions and biennials at institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, the 15th Baltic Triennial and the Lyon Biennial of Contemporary Art.

Tarik Kiswanson is a member of the scientific committee of the Édouard Glissant Art Fund.

1/9Tarik Kiswanson, The Relief (Steinway Victory Vertical, 1944), 2025, piano, fiberglass, resin, paint, piano crate. Installation view, The Relief, Institut Suédois, Paris. Photo: Vinciane Lebrun
2/9Tarik Kiswanson, Passing, 2023, inkjet on cotton. Exhibition view, Nest, Museo Tamayo, Mexico
3/9Tarik Kiswanson, Recall, 2023, 7 resins ; Cradle, 2022, resin, fiberglass, paint; Nest, 2022, resin, fiberglass, paint. Installation view, Becoming, Bonniers Kunsthalle, Stockholm. Photo : Jean Baptiste Valda
4/9Tarik Kiswanson, The Reading Room, 2020, 5’44’’
5/9Tarik Kiswanson, Foresight, 2024, Wehrmacht and Móveis Cimo's chair ; The Relief (R.Gabriel, 1945), 2023, cabinet, oak, beech, resin, fiberglass, paint. Exhibition view Material Evidence, 2025, Fundação de Serralves, Porto. Photo : Filipe Braga
6/9Tarik Kiswanson, The Fall, 2020, 9’42’'
7/9Tarik Kiswanson, Robe, 2020, stainless steel
8/9Tarik Kiswanson, Foresight, 2024, George Nakashima and Adolf Schneck's chairs ; Cradle, 2023, resin, fiberglass, paint. Exhibition view, A Century, Kunsthalle Portikus, Frankfurt. Photo : Wolfgang Günzel
9/9Tarik Kiswanson, Vestibules, 2016, steel. Exhibition view, The Subterranean Sky, Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Selected Press

Gallery Exhibitions

Exhibitions Beyond

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2026

  • Gothenburg Konstmuseum (forthcoming)

  • Progetto, Lecce, Italy (forthcoming)

2025

  • The Relief, Institut suédois, Paris, France

  • Fora do tempo, Fundação Iberê Camargo, Porto Alegre, Brazil

  • Limiar, MAM: São Paulo Museum of Modern Art, São Paulo, Brazil

  • The Relief, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany

2024

  • The Rupture, The Common Guild, Glasgow, Scotland

  • A Century, Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany 

  • Prelude, Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Canada 

  • In the wake, carlier|gebauer, Madrid, Spain

2023

  • The Reading Room, carlier|gebauer, Berlin, Germany

  • Afterwards, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg, Austria

  • Becoming, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden

  • Nido, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico

2022

  • Anamnesis, M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium

  • Nest, Hallands Konstmuseum, Halmstad, Sweden

  • Nest, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon

2021

  • The Window, Murin-An Garden, Institut Français, Kyoto, Japan

  • Surge, carlier|gebauer, Berlin, Germany

  • Mirrorbody, Carré d'Art - Museum of Contemporary Art, Nîmes, France

2020

  • I, Atelier Calder, Calder Foundation, Saché, France

2019

  • Birth, carlier|gebauer, Berlin, Germany

2018

  • Come of age, Fondation d'entreprise Ricard, Paris, France

  • Haytham, Porcino, Berlin, Germany

2017

  • Father Form, carlier|gebauer, Berlin, Germany

2016

  • Ongoing Reflection, Collège des Bernardins, Paris, France

Selected Group Exhibitions

2026

  • M Museum, Leuven (forthcoming)

  • Museum PARCUM, Leuven (forthcoming)

  • De leur temps, MAC: Musée d'art contemporain, Marseille, France

  • Hikmah, Inaugural exhibition of the Centre for Contemporary Arts Tashkent, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

  • This cat was drawn during the war, Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland

  • Threads of Kinship, KADIST and He Art Museum, Foshan, China

  • In Search of the Present, EMMA –Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo, Finland

  • Commodatum, Collegium Museum, Arévalo, Spain

  • ROOTED – The Edstrand Foundation 75 Years, RAVINEN Kulturhus, Båstad, Sweden

  • Rituals of Perception, Inaugural Exhibition of TAF: Tanoto Art Foundation, Singapore, Singapore

  • Lines on Grief, Qattan Foundation, Ramallah

2025

  • to leave a space in which the din of war might die down, NSDOKU: Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism, Munich, Germany

  • The Earth, the Fire, the Water and the Winds: For a Museum of Errantry with Édouard Glissant, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil

  • The Shade, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Karantina, Beirut, Lebanon

  • Rock, Paper, Scissors: Kiasma’s Collection Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland

  • 3 somrar/3 summers, Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden

  • Material Evidence, Fundação de Serralves, Porto, Portugal

2024

  • Public Matter, Abu Dhabi Public Art Biennal, Abu Dhabi, UAE

  • Edstranska Stipend Award Exhibition, Malmö Art Academy, Malmö, Sweden

  • forms of the surrounding futures, Kunsthalle Münster, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

  • Same Day, 15th Baltic Triennial, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, Lithuania

  • Henraux Sculpture Prize 2024, Fondazione Henraux, Querceta, Italy

  • AMONG THE INVISIBLE JOINS, MUSEION Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Bolzano Bozen, Bolzano, Italy

  • The Subterranean Sky, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden

  • Space of Togetherness, Neon Foundation, Athens, Greece

2023

  • Prix Marcel Duchamp, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

  • READ, Kunsthalle Praha, Prague, Czech Republic

  • Worldful: 30 Ans de Carré d’Art, Carré d’Art - Musée d’art contemporain, Nîmes, France

  • From the KADIST collection: Be here or even better, be nowhere, Kadist Foundation, San Francisco, USA

2022

  • Standing, carlier I gebauer, Berlin

  • Manifesto of fragility, 16th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art, Lyon, France

  • Public Art Collection, Skissernas Museum, Lund, Sweden

  • Stitches and Power, MAN Museum, Skellefteå, Sweden

  • Public Art Collection, Länskonsthall, Bode, Sweden

2021

  • Living in this exquisite corpse, Ambassade de France, Bern, Switzerland

  • Hi-Storytelling, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany

  • In the open, The Common Guild, Glasgow, United Kingdom

2020

  • De leur temps, Collection Yvon Lambert, Avignon, France

2019

  • Tainted Love, Centre d'art Villa Arson, Nice, France

  • Foncteur d'Oubli, Le Plateau, FRAC Ile-de-France, Paris, France

  • Immortality, Ural Biennial of Contemporary Art, Yekaterinburg, Russia

  • What remains is what the poets found, PS120, Berlin, Germany

2017

  • Flatlands II, MUDAM - Musée d’art moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg City, Lxembourg

  • Old Dream, Mains d’oeuvres, Paris, France

2016

  • Flatlands I, MRAC - Musée Régional d’Art Contemporain, Sérignan, France

  • D’autres possibles, Le Pavillon Vendôme, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Clichy

  • De leur temps, IAC - Institut d’Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne/ Monograph Rhône-Alpes, France

  • Équilibre Instable, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Libourne, France

  • Le Cabaret Au Salon, Beffroi Montrouge, Montrouge, France

2015

  • COMPOSITIONS, Metropolitan Art Society, Beirut

  • Les Mains Libres, Espace 251 Nord, Liège, Belgium

  • Les Voyageurs, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France

  • The Housebreaker, Riga Art Space, Riga

2014

  • Bodily, Rue de la Fidélité, Paris

2013

  • L’Ange de l’Histoire, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris

Awards

2026

  • Stenastiftlesen Award for Artistic Research, Recipient

  • Pierre Cardin Art Prize - Académie des Beaux-Arts, Recipient

2024

  • Henraux Sculpture Prize, Recipient

  • Edstranska Stipend Awardee, Recipient

2023

  • Marcel Duchamp Prize, Recipient

  • Zurich Art Prize, Nominee

2018

  • Étant Donnés, Recipient

2014

  • Prix des amis des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Recipient

Monographs and Solo Exhibition Catalogues

2023

  • Becoming

  • Published by Bonniers Konsthall and Dilecta

2022

  • Nest

  • Hallands Konstmuseum, Mousse Publishing

  • Texts by Magnus Jensner and Sara Arrhenius

2021

  • Mirrorbody

  • Carré d'Art-Musée d'Art Contemporain, DISTANZ

  • Texts by Jean Marc Prévost, Annie Godfrey Larmon, Xiaoyu Weng, Ingrid Luquet-Gad

Poetry Books

2022

  • The Window

  • Collections of Poems by Tarik Kiswanson

  • MHKA - Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, JBE Book, Paris

2018

  • AS DEEP AS I COULD REMEMBER, AS FAR AS I COULD SEE

  • Collection of Poems by Tarik Kiswanson

  • Lafayette Anticipations, JBE Books

Artist Residencies

2024

  • Villa Albertine, United States

2020

  • Atelier Calder, Calder Foundation, Saché, France

2018

  • Denniston Hill, Monticello, New York, United States

2016

  • ISCP - International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York, United States

2014

  • Triangle, Friche la Belle de mai, Marseille, France

Public Collections