Artist-in-Residence

Borna Sammak

“Not Yet Titled (Couch),” 2018, by Borna Sammak. Cotton, wood, foam, 100 x 163 x 166 in. © Borna Sammak, courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London and JTT, New York

Artist Bio

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1986. Based in Brooklyn.

Sammak’s artistic journey began as a high school apprentice at The Fabric Workshop and Museum; he subsequently obtained a BFA from New York University (2011). Sammak frequently samples from the urban fabric of his everyday surroundings and from the realms of film, television, YouTube, and digital advertising. Spanning a range of media—including installation, videos, and wall-pieces—his works embed and encrypt the material of daily life, splitting and recombining mundane objects and texts, signs, slogans, clothes, or cartoons into compressed metaphors and dense patterns. Through these acts of combination and juxtaposition, currents of awkwardness, humor, and doom run in parallel.

Sammak’s work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions in the U.S. and internationally, including at Dallas Contemporary (2022); JTT, New York (2021); McNamara Art Projects, Hong Kong (2020); Sadie Coles HQ, London (2019); and Tanya Leighton, Berlin (2016). His work has been included in group shows at Tainan Art Museum, Tainan (2022); Museum of the Moving Image, New York (2021); Bortalami, New York (2021); Massimo de Carl, London (2020); Tanya Bonakdar, New York (2018); Marciano Foundatio, Los Angeles (2018); National Gallery of Victoria, Victoria (2016); two exhibitions co-curated by Jeffrey Deitch in Shanghai (2016) and Miami (2017); Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York (2015); and Gagosian Gallery, Athens (2015). His works are held in several public collections including The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, and the Yuz Museum, Shangha. Sammak has been profiled in Interview Magazine and his work has been written about in the Dallas Morning News, Artnet News, Cultured Magazine, W Magazine, and Vogue. He is represented by Sadie Coles, London and JTT, New York.