Paul Mpagi Sepuya Born 1982 in San Bernardino, US

Lives and works in Los Angeles, US

Paul Mpagi Sepuya was born in 1982 in San Bernardino, California. He lives and works in Los Angeles. He received his BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2004 and his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2016. He is an Associate Professor in Media Arts at the University of California San Diego.

Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s recent exhibitions at Galerie Peter Kilchmann include the group show Shifting in our Zurich gallery in 2025, as well as two concurrent solo exhibitions, Push/Pull and Lustrer, held in our Zurich and Paris galleries respectively in 2023. Frieze magazine recognized this double feature as one of Europe’s best exhibitions of the year.

In 2020, Sepuya presented his first solo exhibition at Galerie Peter Kilchmann, showcasing works made between 2017 and 2018 from a range of ongoing projects.

Sepuya has had solo exhibitions at the following international institutions (selection): Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK (2024); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany (2022); Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha (2020); Contemporary Arts Museum St. Louis, US (2019); Fotomuseum Amsterdam, Netherlands (2018); KMAC Museum, Louisville, US (2017); and MoCA, Los Angeles, US.

His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including Barbican Gallery, London, UK (2020); FRAC, Besançon, France (2020); Bass Museum of Art, Miami, US (2019); Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, Canada (2019); Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, US (2019); the Guggenheim Museum, New York, US (2019); Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London, UK (2019); Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (2018); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2018); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2018); New Museum, New York (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016); and The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2015).

Sepuya was an artist-in-residence at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center and received a 2021 Los Angeles Artadia Award.

His work will be presented in two upcoming solo exhibitions at the Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Germany, and Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, in 2026.