Credit: Florian Thoß
Credit: Florian Thoß


Moshtari Hilal is a visual artist, writer and curator based in Hamburg and Berlin.

 

Hilal studied Islamic Studies and Political Science with a focus on Gender and Decolonial Theory in Hamburg, Berlin and London. She is co-founder of the collective AVAH (Afghan Visual Arts and History) and the research project CCC (Curating Through Conflict with Care) as part of ngbk in Berlin. Together with political geographer Sinthujan Varatharajah, Hilal published September 2022 at Wirklichkeit Books the conversation book "English in Berlin - Exclusions in a Cosmopolitan Society". Varatharajah and Hilal were awarded the supporting price for critique by the Lessing Academy Wolfenbüttel for their joint work. Hilal is also one of four Villa Serpentara 2023 fellows awarded by the Young Academy of Arts in Berlin and hosted by the Villa Massimo in Rome. Hilal's essayistic debut "Hässlichkeit" (Ugliness) will be published by Hanser in September 2023.

 

With a particular interest in analog drawing and collage, Moshtari Hilal considers her overarching practice to be interdisciplinary and process-oriented. While her work begins with the personal and subjective as a resource and starting point, the process includes research, collaborative and collective practice, and the critical engagement and curatorial mediation with the public. Hilal describes her artistic practice as reconciling with shame and negated beauty, and seeks to understand and critique power and colonial continuities in visual culture. Her practice is informed by (self-)portraits and informal family archives, which she employs in eclectic ways in her search for a visual language.

Her work deals with recurring motifs, such as the prominent nose, black hair, the figure of the mother and unreliable childhood memories. Thus, the artist works with the drawn line as a means and symbol of a figurative vocabulary that refers to the black-haired body, as well as visual noise and low resolution, as a method to access precarious material. 

 

List of Selected Exhibitions and Artist Talks 

See here for upcoming and recent updates 

 

   Solo-Shows

 

The Warm Pillow was My Mother, The Blanket My Father

12.12.-17.01.2020 Hamburg, Âme Nue

 

The Black Haired Bomb

21.-23.08.2019 Berlin, Pop-Kultur Festival

 

BANAL – an exploration of everyday aesthetics

27.10.-04.11.2018 London, Enclave Lab/Goldsmith University

 

The Angle of a Phallus is Equal to the Angle of a Nose

13.04.-14.04.2018 Hamburg, Galerie 21/Vorwerk-Stiftung

 

Das Mädchen mit dem Damenbart

30.11.-30.01.2016 Berlin, Literarisches Kolloquium Berlin

 

 

 

   Double-Shows

 

Selbstähnlich (mit Cihan Cakmak) 02.06.-07.8.2022 Frankfurt, basis

 

STRUKTUR (mit Barbara Lüdde) 04.10.-24.10.2020 Hamburg, Feinkunst Krüger 

 

 

 

 

   Group-Shows 

 

CANONS

09.01.-06.02.2021 Paris, Galerie Derouillon

 

The Flowers of Evil

29.09.-13.01.2019 Sopot, Sopot National Gallery of Art

 

La Nuit de l’Instant c’est l’imagination au pouvoir

13.-14.09.2019 Marseille, Centre Photographique Marseille

 

When My Mother Entered My Work

03.-07.07.2019 Beirut, Beirut Design Week

 

Tanawo

15.-18.03.2018 Hamburg, Affenfaust Gallery

 

Self

10.11.2017 Barcelona, Museu del Disseny

 

Nimrouz – The First Global Visual Arts Exhibition of Afghanistan

03.- 17.11.2017 Tehran, Niavaran-Complex

 

South Asian Evocations and Becomings

27.10.2017 New York City, China Town Soup

 

Atelier Identity

26.05- 14.06.2017 Berlin, Heinrich Böll Stiftung

 

Empathy Won’t Save Us

08.09.2016 Hannover, CLINCH Postcolonial Festival

 

Art Amongst War: Visual Culture in Afghanistan 1979-2014

05.03.-17.04.2014 New Jersey, TCNJ-Art Gallery Vorträge

 

 

 

 

   Lectures and Talks

 

Hässlichkeit Verlernen

07.09.2021 Osnabrück, VIELEN, Museumsquartier Osnabrück

 

Hässlichkeit Verlernen - Über künstlerische Praxis und koloniale Sehgewohnheiten

26.02.2020 Hamburg, MARKK

 

Zeichnen als Semi-dokumentarische Skulptur

05.11.2019 Hamburg, HfBK

 

Creating Beyond the Collective Other

25.07.2019 Bamberg, Symposium an der Universität Bamberg Residenz/Workshop

 

 

 

 

   Residency

 

The Crack begins Within

Okt-Nov 2020 Berlin, Kurator*innen Workshop der Berlin Biennale 11

 

Haramacy

24.-27.04.2019 London, Albany

 

International Artists Studio Programme

31. 07 -30. 09.2017 Gothenburg, Konstepidemin