Leilah Babirye

Leilah Babirye (b. 1985; Kampala, Uganda) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is represented by Gordon Robichaux, New York; Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin; and Salon 94, New York. She studied art at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda (2007–10) and participated in the Fire Island Artist Residency in 2015. In 2018, she received asylum in the US with support from the African Services Committee and the NYC Anti-Violence Project.

Babirye has presented solo exhibitions at Salon 94, New York (forthcoming in 2027); Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles (2025); Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin (2025); Gordon Robichaux, New York (2024, 2020, and 2018) and Los Angeles (2022); Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (2021); and Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco (2020). Solo institutional exhibitions include Embaga ya Naki ne Naki (Wedding of Naki and Naki), ICA Boston, MA (2026); We Have a History, de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA (2024-2025); and Obumu (Unity), Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield,UK (2024). In August 2026, Babirye will present Embaga ya Naki ne Naki (Wedding of Naki and Naki) at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. In 2024, the artist presented a group of monumental sculptures in Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere: 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy; and in 2026, Babirye will present work at the 18th Lyon Biennial of Contemporary Art: To pass from one dream to another in Lyon, France.

Group exhibitions include Clay Has Memory: Generational Knowledge from Africa, Princeton University Museum, New Jersey; Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art, National Museum of African Art, Washington D.C; Shifting the Silence, Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany; With Love from Paris, Pierre Yovanovitch, Paris, France; New Encounters: Reframing the Contemporary Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; ARTZUID, the Amsterdam Sculpture Biennale, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; From Joséphine Bowes: Trendsetters and Trailblazers, The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, UK; Liquid Gender, Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, UK;Dreaming of Home, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York; Ecstatic, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; This Too Shall Pass, Venus Over Manhattan, New York; Traces of Displacement, The Whitworth, Manchester, UK; Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art, Hayward Gallery, London, UK; Contemporary African Art Collection, The Africa Centre, London, UK; The odds are good, the goods are odd, Lisson Gallery, New York; On The Nature of Things, Andrew Kreps, New York; mixed up with others before we even begin at mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna, Austria; Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art, Hayward Gallery, London; Black Atlantic (co-curated by Hugh Hayden and Daniel S. Palmer), presented by the Public Art Fund, Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York; 52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut; Set It Off (curated by Racquel Chevremont and Mickalene Thomas, collectively known as Deux Femmes Noires), Parrish Museum of Art, Watermill, New York; Coventry Biennial, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, UK; Art on the Grid, Public Art Fund, New York; Did I Ever Have a Chance?, Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles; A Page From My Intimate Journal (Part II) —, Parker Gallery, Los Angeles; Flight: A Collective History (curated by Serubiri Moses), Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Stonewall 50 (curated by Dean Daderko), Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Fur Cup (curated by Elisa Soliven), Underdonk, Brooklyn, New York; Strange Attractors (curated by Bob Nickas), Kerry Schuss, New York; Plays on Camp (curated by Dr. Ksenia M. Soboleva), Assembly Room, New York; and the 2018 Socrates Annual, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, New York.

Public commissions include Frieze Sculpture, London, UK (2023); Black Atlantic (co-curated by Hugh Hayden and Daniel S. Palmer) presented by the Public Art Fund, Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York (2022); and Najunga from the Kuchu Ngaali (Crested Crane) Clan, Celine, London, UK (2021).

Babirye’s work is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; mumok–Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna; Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany; de Young Museum, San Francisco, California; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio; Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin; RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island; Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, UK; The Africa Centre, London, UK; and Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Germany.

Profiles on Babirye and her work were recently published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, the Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, British Vogue, Wallpaper* Magazine, Cultured Magazine, New York Magazine, Modern Painters, OUT Magazine, SFMOMA’s Raw Material podcast (Season 4: Luvvers), BET.com, and the Financial Times.

Publications include Leilah Babirye, Gordon Robichaux, New York and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK; Great Women Sculptors, Phaidon Press, New York; Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art, Hayward Gallery, London, UK; Coventry Biennial: Hyper-Possible, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, UK; 25 Years, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK; and When Things Fall Apart: Critical Voices on the Radars, Trapholt Museum, Kolding, Denmark.