Biography

In an attempt to envision alternative futures, Trevor Paglen investigates the historical moments in which we are living. His work encompasses image making, sculpture, investigative journalism, writing, engineering and other disciplines.

Among Paglen’s numerous solo and two-person exhibitions are Kate Crawford | Trevor Paglen: Training Humans, Prada Foundation, Milan (2019); Machine Visions, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2018); Autonomy Cube, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm (2017); Autonomy Cube, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2017); Orbital Reflector, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno (2016); and The Octopus, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany (2015). His work has also been featured in a number of group exhibitions, including New Order: Art and Technology in the Twenty-First Century, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2019); Faithless Pictures, National Museum, Oslo (2018); Imagined Borders, Gwangju Biennale (2018); and Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy, The Met Breuer, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2018).

Paglen’s work is part of the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and Nevada Museum of Art.

His work has appeared in many publications, and he has authored or co-authored a number of books, including From the Archives of Peter Merlin, Aviation Archaeologist (Primary Information, 2019); The Last Pictures (University of California Press and Creative Time Books, 2012); and Blank Spots on the Map – The Dark Geography of the Pentagon’s Secret World (Berkeley, 2010).

Paglen has received numerous awards, including the Nam June Paik Art Center Prize (2018) and the MacArthur Fellowship (2017).

He holds a BA from UC Berkeley (1996), an MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago (2002) and a PhD in Geography from UC Berkeley (2008).

Born in 1974 in Camp Springs, United States, Paglen currently lives and works in Berlin.

SAF participation:
Art in the Age of Anxiety (2020)