Mohammed Omer Khalil: Common Ground

Friday, April 3, 2026 6:00 PM

Twelve Gates Arts
106 North 2nd Street
Philadelphia, PA, 19106, U.S.

Twelve Gates Arts in Philadelphia exhibits Khalil’s work paying homage to Sudan, featuring a selection of collage paintings from the Suakin series alongside a portfolio of etchings based on Tayeb Salih’s novel, Season of Migration to the North (1966). The gallery invites the local community by providing reading materials and rare footage of Sudan, serving as a space for research.

On view from April 3–May 15, Mohammad Omer Khalil: Common Ground is a survey exhibition of works by the New York-based Sudanese artist and master printmaker Mohammad Omer Khalil (b.1936), widely recognized as the first major printmaker from the Arab world. Curated by Amina Ahmed and Jenna Hamed in partnership with the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, the exhibition presents a selection of his paintings and printed works spanning six decades, employing collage and offering tribute to the scenes, sounds and syntax influential to Khalil’s visual language. 

The multi-venue and multi-city exhibition unfolds across five partner venues including the Blackburn Study Center (New York), Twelve Gates Arts (Philadelphia), Arab American National Museum (Dearborn), Maqām Studio (Brooklyn) and Jay Seven Inc (Brooklyn), alongside a robust series of programs and workshops in partnership with The Africa Center, Anthology Film Archives, Pratt Institute, Queens Museum.

Displays will also be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The New York Public Library.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue featuring essays from the co-curators alongside Dr. Bayan Abubakr, Sudanese historian at Yale University; Omar Berrada, writer, curator, and Director of Dar al-Ma'mûn, Marrakech; Amir ElSaffar, composer, jazz trumpeter and vocalist; Jennifer Farrell, Jordan Schnitzer Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Tumelo Mosaka, Curator in African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University; Navina Najat Haidar, Curator of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Ben Rejali, Editor of Khabar Keslan; Olivia Shao, Curator at the Drawing Center and Khalil’s former student; Ksenia Nouril, Assistant Director of the International Program at the Museum of Modern Art; and Sumesh Sharma, Curator and Founder of the Clark House Initiative, Mumbai.

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