Omar Kholeif’s Next Big Adventure
by Robert Ross, aP21 Correspondent
Portrait of Omar Kholeif performing as their avatar Doctor. O in 2023.
Next week, Dr. Omar Kholeif, director of collections and senior curator at Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) and a mainstay of the UAE’s cultural scene will be packing up their bags as a co-director of SAF to become one of the few persons from Egypt or Sudan to become a professor at a major British art school—a country, which although Kholeif’s home, has also been historically ambivalent regarding its complicity in colonial art history.
Kholeif’s onward journey sees them become Professor of Global Art Theory and Practice at the historic Glasgow School of Art, as well as Co-Convener of the Master’s in Curatorial Practice, delivered in partnership with the University of Glasgow, where Kholeif received their undergraduate education.
Professor Kholeif who 20 years ago began their career pushing for artists from Africa and Asia to be seen in museums is eager to inhabit this new persona, having also worked in the Higher Education sector for nearly a decade now in the U.S., the UAE and the UK.
Turning back the clock, to more than 10 years ago, I ask Dr. Kholeif how they felt when British GQ described the “Omar Kholeif” as a “game changer in the curatorial field”. “It was fun”, they say.
A senior leader of a national arts institution in Britain by age 24. By 30, they had curated or overseen over 70 exhibitions, having also organized 2 major international visual arts biennials, curated 2 national representations at the Venice Biennale of visual art, simultaneously earning their master’s and doctorate while working full-time. “That nearly caused a nervous breakdown”, they mutter, before swallowing their words.
They were also appointed to a distinguished position at the world’s top-ranked university at the time—the University of Chicago while working at the MCA Chicago, a joint post tailor-made for them, and have continued as an academic leader ever since. They have also acted as a mentor on several executive MBA programs; convened intensives at Hunter College, New York and supported the leadership at Teeside University to realize the possibilities of the Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art as a vessel at the heart of the university’s programs. “I think the Advanced Curating MA at Teeside is just fantastic, attracting such as fascinating and diverse cohort,” they inform me.
In 2016, Cultured Magazine profiled Professor Kholeif noting that they were “a force of change”, also outlining Kholeif’s position in amplifying diasporic voices. Special note was also made of their role in the literary world. Indeed, their penchant for storytelling would go on to attract the eyes of one of the largest Hollywood talent agencies and have their writing compared to that of David Foster Wallace in the press.
On the curating front, where they stand tall, several media outlets have compared Professor Kholeif to the late Nigerian curator, Okwui Enwezor and to the foundational figure, Harald Szeemann, who have paved the way for art theory and practice as we know it today. The difference between Omar Kholeif and many curators may however be in their upbringing.
Kholeif, born in Cairo, to Sudanese and Egyptian parents, relocated to Glasgow, Scotland at 3 months old. Their early years orbiting the interchange of the city’s M8 motorway, were challenging ones.
Kholeif has publicly detailed them as wrought with regular occurrences of xenophobia, harassment, and physical violence. One such event, which took place when they were merely six years old, led to a severe head injury that permanently impacted them neurologically. A surgery would rehabilitate most, but not all of the damage. All the same, Kholeif chose to return to Glasgow for their undergraduate study, which they reminisce upon fondly. “Every place has the good, the bad and the ugly; you cannot judge it on the basis of a moment in time, or indeed one incidence, “ they say smiling, but also trembling, with hesitation in their voice.
Significant cultural figures have consistently turned to Kholeif, becoming nuanced and daring collaborators, from film director Peter Webber, Turner Prize winning artist, Prof, Lubaina Himid CBE RA, legend of the gallery world, Nicholas Logsdail OBE, through to Sharjah’s Sheikh Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, Founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation.
“My philosophy is one of friendship, of kinship, criss-crossing across our differences. All my work, my research, revolves around this concept. If Mark Zuckerberg or Kim Kardashian prove to be compassionate people who share similar values around a core issue, then I would be happy to afford them compassionate time, even if we might disagree on certain principles for instances.”
But what of the big move? And the departure? The loss of what they once dubbed their ‘second skin’?
“Nothing in life is fixed. We have a lot of stories that we need to help each other narrate, together. I would hope that all the work that I do is embedded in the life of the stories and journeys, and artworks, the people and what we have experienced together.
The UAE remains my “home” now more than ever. It is a nexus-point, a convening, a hub, for the entire world. It has grown to offer me more gifts of cultural literacy, and tools towards my research and scholarship than I could have ever imagined, which is why I am not leaving per se. I am looking forward to the continued dialogues, projects, partnerships and worldbuilding activities that can be realized collectively across the Emirates at this incredibly exciting moment in its history. And there is something very special up my sleeve that I’ll be rolling out next year, if you don’t mind waiting.