Brooks
Khaleb Brooks - Artist and Researcher
b. 1991
represented by Gazelli Art House
Khaleb Brooks is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher and writer exploring blackness, transness and collective memory. By meshing the black queer figure with surreal environments in paintings, using printmaking to question the politics of desire and interrogating archives through sculpture they attempt to piece together the fragments of collective black memory.
Prior to working as an artist full time, Khaleb was an international development practitioner working with the United Nations and a multitude of NGOs throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia. They consistently seek innovative ways to bring their passion for social justice to the creative sector. Khaleb, originally from Chicago is inspired by the perseverance of black families in overcoming poverty, addiction, abuse and gang violence as well as their own experiences of being transgender.
“For the first time I’m beginning to understand my work as a part of the archive rather than something solely addressing it. Offering something alternative to the consistent perspectives of slave traders, captains, aristocracy, diplomats and middlemen. The loudest voice in those pages were the ones that were not present at all, those of the enslaved. How do we counteract the violence that archives perpetuate? And in what ways are we already doing it? Say Her Name, Say His Name. The importance of individual narrative is vital, the importance of naming is vital and what happens when those names don’t exist? Who do we become when we are only encountered at death?"
- Brooks on researching the Earle collection at the International Slavery Museum
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2022 Jupiter's Song, International Slavery Museum, Liverpool, UK
2022 Can I Get A Witness, Gazelli Art House, London, UK
2018 Rememory: Ritual Blackness and Beyond, WE-DEY, Vienna, Austria
2014 Khaleb Brooks: Art is Revolution- Gentrification, Paper Box, Brooklyn, NY
Selected Group Exhibitions
2022 Decriminalised Futures, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, UK
2021 Curtain Twitching, Gazelli Art House, London, UK
2021 Decriminalised Futures (Commission), Institute of Contemporary Art, London
2020 Inferno Summit, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, UK
2020 Borders (Performance), Gazelli Art House, London
2019 Celebrating Stonewall 50 years (Commission), Schwules Museum, Berlin
2019 Stonewall 50 Days of Future Past, Glougauair, Berlin
2019 Its Not Me Its You (Performance), Gazelli Art House, London
2019 3 x 3 x 6, Shu Lea Cheang and Paul Preciado, Venice Biennale
2019 The Failures of Electronic Discipline, Psychiatric Hospital Museum of San Servolo, Venice Biennale
2018 TransFormations Film Festival Berlin, Werkstatt Der Kulturen Berlin, Germany
2018 Re: Generate Arts Festival (Commission), Ugly Duck Gallery, London, UK
2018 Punx of Colour, 198 Contemporary Arts Gallery, London, UK
2018 Unhinged: Ain’t I Beautiful III, Project Mission Gallery, The Hive, London, UK
Honors
2021- 2022 Artist in Residence, Metal Culture
2021 Artist in Residence, Liverpool Museum of Slavery
2021 Onassis Emergency Fellowship
2020 Blue Skies Commission, International Curators Forum
2020 Artist in Residence, Tate Modern
Education
2015 School of Oriental & African Studies University of London, MSc, Violence Conflict and
Development, London, UK
2013 Aracadia University, BA, International Studies/ Women and Gender Studies
Honors: Cum Laude, Sigma Iota Rho, Dean’s List, London, UK