Steve Sabella (*1975 in Jerusalem, Palestine), is a Berlin-based international artist using photography and photographic installations as his primary forms of expression. His research focuses on the genealogy and archaeology of the image. He is the author of the award-winning memoir, The Parachute Paradox, published by Kerber Verlag (Berlin, 2016) tackling the colonization of the imagination. The book won the 2017 Eric Hoffer Award and the 2016 Nautilus Book Awards for best memoir.

 

In 2008, Sabella received the Ellen Auerbach Award by nomination from the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, leading to a monograph covering twenty years of his art published by Hatje Cantz (Berlin, 2014) with texts by Hubertus von Amelunxen, president of the European Graduate School in Switzerland, and a foreword by artist and art historian Kamal Boullata who described Sabella’s work as a dream to discover.

 

Sabella received a BA in Visual Studies from the State University of New York in 2007. Through a Chevening Scholarship in 2008, he earned a master’s degree in Photographic Studies at the University of Westminster, London, graduating with a Caparo Award of Distinction, granted to the highest achieving scholar in the art university. In 2009, he earned his second master’s in Art Business at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London.

Sabella’s art is in the British Museum collection in London. MATHAF, The Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, where he was one of the 23 artists commissioned for its inauguration in 2010. The Arab World Institute in Paris, which has twenty artworks in their permanent collection. Bahrain National Museum upon a commission to interpret the country visually. Ars Aevi Museum of Contemporary Art in Sarajevo. Salsali Private Museum in Dubai, among other museums & prominent private collections.  

 

Sabella exhibited with critical curators like Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, currently directors of Hamburger Banhof Museum in Berlin, in Told, Untold, Retold for the opening of MATHAF. Bartomeu Mari, Marco Bazzini and Christine Macel, curator of the 2017 Venice Biennale, in Nel Mezzo del Mezzo, at Museo Riso in Palermo. Venetia Porter, in Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa at The British Museum in London. 

 

Sabella participated in art biennales, including the First Biennial of Photographers of the Contemporary Arab World at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris (2016). FotoFest Biennial, View from Inside, Houston (2014); and at Les Rencontres d’Arles (2013), Arles, France. 

 

Sabella’s many solo exhibitions include a major retrospective at the International Center for Photography Scavi Scaligeri Museum, Verona (2014), Archaeology of the Future.