Viewing Hamad Butt: Apprehensions at Whitechapel Gallery

The late Hamad Butt was born in Lahore and moved to East London with his family when he was 2 years old. He later studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths, alongside many who would be become known as the YBAs. Butt’s own work began with works on paper, printmaking and painting, but later they had a perilous edge – in the late 1980s, he began to create large-scale installations with toxic materials, works that became known as ‘hazardism’, implying or imposing a real-life risk.

Butt was just 32 when he died of AIDS-related complications, in 1994; he had seen the beginnings of a brilliant career, exhibiting at the Tate, and the ICA, as well as the Whitechapel. This exhibition explores his legacy, and the ambitious and nuanced works he created before his untimely death. Butt’s avant-garde work was at the forefront of the emerging idea of intermedia art, addressing both his queer and diasporic identities, and often drawing on scientific references.

Butt also offered important perspectives on the AIDS crisis, thinking about how sex and desire are seen and understood at a time when both of those things were heavily stigmatised and considered dangerous. This is the very first survey paying homage to Butt’s work, and arrives in London from the Irish Museum of Modern Art, where it was shown last year.