Exhibition: Riverbend

Date and Time

Fri, Oct 25, 2024 - Sun, Feb 23, 2025

Location

Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco
345 Montgomery St

Details

For her first museum solo exhibition, Maryam Yousif will debut new large-scale ceramic installations. Inspired by the young Iraqi woman who blogged about life under American occupation from 2003 to 2007—under the pseudonym Riverbend—Yousif continues this legacy of witnessing. Wooden structures inspired by Baghdadi architecture will frame snippets of memory, blending Yousif’s own life with Riverbend’s narrative. Ceramic figures gaze out at us while we peer back into intimate vignettes of domestic and city life. Yousif fuses elements of Iraqi Modernism, Mesopotamian and Assyrian mythology, Funk Art, Bay Area Figuration, and pop culture into an entirely unique visual language.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Maryam Yousif was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1985, and lives and works in San Francisco CA. She received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2017, and her BA at the University of Windsor, Ontario in 2008. Solo and two-person exhibitions include forthcoming exhibitions at ICA San Francisco, CA (2024) and Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco CA (2024); as well as past exhibitions at The Pit, Los Angeles / Palm Springs (2023, 2021); David B. Smith, Denver CO (2022); and Andrew Rafacz, Chicago IL (2021); amongst others. Yousif’s work has been featured in group exhibitions at the Manetti Shrem Museum, Davis CA (2024, forthcoming); GGLA, Los Angeles CA (2024); Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles CA (2023); Museum of Art & Design, New York NY (2023); and Massey Klein Gallery, New York NY (2023); amongst others. She is the recipient of the Fleishhacker Foundation’s Eureka Fellowship and a finalist for SFMOMA’s SECA award and the Museum of Art and Design’s Burke Prize. Yousif is represented by The Pit, Los Angeles.