“Wafaa Bilal’s First Museum Survey Exhibition Opens at MCA Chicago”
**Wafaa Bilal: Pushing Boundaries at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago**
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago currently hosts **_Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me_**, a groundbreaking exhibition exploring the thought-provoking and boundary-pushing works of internationally renowned Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal. As the artist’s first major museum survey, the exhibition offers an insightful retrospective of his multifaceted practice spanning nearly two decades. By examining Bilal’s diverse body of work, the exhibition situates his artistic explorations within broader historical, cultural, and political conversations. Curated by Bana Kattan with curatorial associate Iris Colburn, the show offers attendees an unflinching glimpse into the intersections of art, politics, trauma, and humanity.
### **An Innovator in Immersive Art**
Wafaa Bilal is widely celebrated for his use of art as a platform to engage with socio-political issues, particularly those linked to war, displacement, and identity. As Kattan notes, “To take such a long view of his practice is to see the ways he has artfully navigated the seemingly incomprehensible relationship between international and interpersonal politics.” The exhibition features five meticulously planned sections, each centered around one of Bilal’s influential works. The result is a deeply immersive journey that invites visitors to unpack complex themes of violence, memory, resilience, and futurism, all the while challenging preconceived notions of interactivity and political engagement in art.
### **Highlighting the Artist’s Transformative Works**
Among the featured works is Bilal’s powerful 2007 performance piece, **_Domestic Tension_**. Presented as a reconstruction of a room in Chicago’s FLATFILE Gallery, this immersive installation restages the intensely personal and political experience that Bilal endured during the monthlong performance. In this project, Bilal confined himself in a gallery space while participants around the globe could use an online platform to remotely fire a paintball gun aimed at him. His reflection on the work—“We enabled users around the world to experience what it felt like to shoot an Iraqi”—speaks to its harrowing commentary on the desensitization of violence in contemporary society. Over the course of 31 days, visitors shot at him over 65,000 times, transforming the exhibition into a global intersection of virtual cruelty and moral reckoning.
Another transformative piece highlighted in the exhibit is **_3rdi_** (2010–2011), a yearlong performance during which Bilal surgically implanted a camera into the back of his head. Capturing a photograph every minute, the camera chronicled the world from a perspective that suggested a continuous recording of what was left behind—an allegorical representation of displacement, migration, and the fragmented understandings of identity that accompany exile. A towering video installation displays archival images from this work, bringing visitors face-to-face with Bilal’s deeply unique meditation on observation, surveillance, and memory.
Bilal also revisits his 2015 project **_In a Grain of Wheat: Cultivating Hybrid Futures in Ancient Seed DNA_**, a response to the Islamic State’s destruction of historical artifacts such as the Lamassu—the Winged Bull of Nineveh sculpture in Iraq. The work explores themes of restoration, continuity, and cultural survival in the face of destruction and loss. Through digital intervention and artistic reinterpretation, Bilal re-imagines the Lamassu, offering hope amid the devastation of historic erasure.
### **Art Reaching Toward the Cosmos**
One of the most intriguing components of _Indulge Me_ is Bilal’s latest project, **_Thumbsat Satellite_** (2024). This audacious, cutting-edge work blends contemporary critique with celestial innovation as a golden bust of Saddam Hussein is launched into Earth’s orbit aboard a small satellite. Inspired by rumors of the former Iraqi president’s desire to launch his likeness into space, Bilal’s project serves as both an incisive reflection on dictatorial arrogance and a poetic rendering of humanity’s complex relationship with power, legacy, and environmental impermanence. The artwork will eventually burn upon reentry into the atmosphere, symbolizing the ephemeral nature of man’s hubris. Within the gallery space, visitors can view a model of the satellite, track its trajectory in real time, and delve into interactive components that deepen their engagement with this ambitious statement piece.
### **A Comprehensive Celebration of a Provocative Artist**
In addition to its groundbreaking art installations, _Indulge Me_ is accompanied by a range of public programs and a significant publication that serves as the first comprehensive study of Bilal’s interdisciplinary approach. These components ensure that audiences don’t merely observe Bilal’s work; they actively engage with its multifaceted meanings, themes, and cultural resonance.
Bana Kattan and her team have created a space that balances aesthetic excellence with thought-provoking immersion,