Osman Khan: From the Tech World to the Art Field

UCLA Arts alumnus and Detroit-based artist and professor Osman Khan M.F.A. ‘04 joins Works In Progress to discuss his remarkable journey from the tech world to the art field, how he arrived at UCLA, the inspirations behind his provocative and poignant work, and his upcoming solo exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), Road to Hybridabad, on view August 24, 2024.

Khan is currently a professor at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan. He is interested in constructing artifacts and experiences for social criticism and aesthetic expression. His work plays with and subverts the materiality behind themes of identity, home/land, and social and public space through participatory, performative installations and site-specific interventions.

Osman Khan’s The sounds weight in anticipation of their song, hum tum tanana nana, nana nana ray, is a sound installation that interprets the sounds and iconographies of South Asia through a decolonial position and contemporary lens. (Osman Khan)

His work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MoCAD); the Shanghai Biennale; the ZERO1 Biennial, San Jose; Kunstinstituut Melly (formerly Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art), Rotterdam; Ars Electronica Center, Linz; Socrates Sculpture Park, New York; Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids (as part of ArtPrize 2014); among others.

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Header image: Osman Khan's Buraq, a magical horse-like creature in Islamic tradition, will be featured in Khan's solo exhibition, Road to Hybridabad, at MASS MoCA. (Osman Khan)