The Art World Star You’ve Never Heard Of

Most galleries do their utmost to get the artists they represent into museum collections. It increases prestige for everyone involved and, in the case of young artists, helps solidify their reputations as legitimate subjects to collect: Someone good enough for the Museum of Modern Art is good enough for everyone else.

Few dealers, though, could dream of the level of institutional attention that’s been lavished on 32 year-old Lawrence Abu Hamdan, an Amman, Jordan-born, Europe-based artist who’s made waves ever since his The Freedom of Speech Itself, a documentary project that tackled Britain’s use of voice analysis to vet asylum seekers, was considered significant enough to be submitted to the U.K.’s official asylum tribunal as evidence. (Abu Hamdan also testified as an expert witness.)