Hamad Butt: Apprehensions

6 Dec 2024-5 May 2025

Overview

IMMA presents, for the first time outside of the UK, a retrospective exhibition of the work of ground-breaking artist Hamad Butt (1962-1994). Born in Pakistan, and raised in London, he was British South Asian, Muslim, and queer. A contemporary of the Young British Artists, critics described him as epitomizing the new ‘hazardism’ in art.

Hamad Butt: Apprehensions is the first retrospective exhibition of the work of pioneering artist Hamad Butt (1962-1994) organised by IMMA and Whitechapel Gallery, London. Hamad Butt’s work is poignant and severe, emotive yet austere. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, and raised in London, he was British South Asian, Muslim, and queer. Before his AIDS-related death in 1994, aged 32, Butt completed and showed four key sculptural installations and left behind writings, drawings, paintings, and plans for new installations. This is the first time his work will be shown outside of the UK.

Butt was a pioneer of intermedia interventions in art and science, conceptual sculpture, installation, and queer diasporic art. He was a contemporary of the Young British Artists (and their peer at Goldsmiths) and critics described him as epitomizing the new ‘hazardism’ in art. He exhibited widely in his lifetime, and he was arguably the first British artist to respond in a non-militant, conceptual mode to HIV/AIDS. His iconic sculptural works have never been shown together, his paintings and drawings never exhibited until now.

Hamad Butt: Apprehensions is curated by Dominic Johnson, Professor of Performance and Visual Culture at Queen Mary University of London, and co-curated with Seán Kissane and Gilane Tawadros. The exhibition is organised in cooperation with Jamal Butt and the Estate of Hamad Butt.

Artists