BIOGRAPHY
Faig Ahmed (b. 1982, Sumqayit, Azerbaijan) is a contemporary artist based in Baku. Trained in sculpture at the Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Arts, he has developed an internationally recognized practice that reconsiders the cultural, material, and perceptual systems embedded in traditional carpet weaving.
Ahmed is best known for transforming the visual language and techniques of historic Azerbaijani carpets into sculptural, spatial, and conceptual works. Rather than treating the carpet as a fixed cultural object, he approaches it as a system of information—one that can be disrupted, expanded, re-coded, and placed in dialogue with contemporary visual culture. Through distortions of pattern, structure, scale, and material, his work examines the relationship between tradition and transformation, physical and virtual space, collective memory and individual perception
In recent years, Ahmed’s practice has expanded beyond the carpet as a medium into interdisciplinary research concerned with consciousness, cognition, neuroscience, probability, and emerging technologies. Working across textile, sculpture, installation, video, sound, and research-based formats, he explores how patterns are perceived, how meaning is constructed, and how cultural and technological systems shape human experience. This development extends long-standing interests within his practice in geometry, mysticism, calligraphy, science, ancient texts, and systems of knowledge.
Ahmed represented Azerbaijan at the country’s inaugural pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007. In 2026, he returned to La Biennale di Venezia as the sole artist of the Azerbaijan National Pavilion with the exhibition The Attention. His work has been presented internationally at institutions including Princeton University Art Museum, Aga Khan Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (MACRO), George Washington University and The Textile Museum, Honolulu Museum of Art, San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, Maraya Art Centre, Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt, Istanbul Modern, MONA Tasmania, and the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney. In 2013, he was nominated for the Jameel Prize 3 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Ahmed’s work is held in major public collections worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Seattle Art Museum, RISD Museum, Chrysler Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, de Young Museum, Birmingham Museum of Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Istanbul Modern, and others. His work is also represented in significant institutional and private collections, including the Microsoft Art Collection, West Collection, Jameel Foundation, Espacio SOLO, the collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody, and the collection of H.H. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan.
Ahmed is best known for transforming the visual language and techniques of historic Azerbaijani carpets into sculptural, spatial, and conceptual works. Rather than treating the carpet as a fixed cultural object, he approaches it as a system of information—one that can be disrupted, expanded, re-coded, and placed in dialogue with contemporary visual culture. Through distortions of pattern, structure, scale, and material, his work examines the relationship between tradition and transformation, physical and virtual space, collective memory and individual perception
In recent years, Ahmed’s practice has expanded beyond the carpet as a medium into interdisciplinary research concerned with consciousness, cognition, neuroscience, probability, and emerging technologies. Working across textile, sculpture, installation, video, sound, and research-based formats, he explores how patterns are perceived, how meaning is constructed, and how cultural and technological systems shape human experience. This development extends long-standing interests within his practice in geometry, mysticism, calligraphy, science, ancient texts, and systems of knowledge.
Ahmed represented Azerbaijan at the country’s inaugural pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007. In 2026, he returned to La Biennale di Venezia as the sole artist of the Azerbaijan National Pavilion with the exhibition The Attention. His work has been presented internationally at institutions including Princeton University Art Museum, Aga Khan Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (MACRO), George Washington University and The Textile Museum, Honolulu Museum of Art, San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, Maraya Art Centre, Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt, Istanbul Modern, MONA Tasmania, and the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney. In 2013, he was nominated for the Jameel Prize 3 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Ahmed’s work is held in major public collections worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Seattle Art Museum, RISD Museum, Chrysler Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, de Young Museum, Birmingham Museum of Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Istanbul Modern, and others. His work is also represented in significant institutional and private collections, including the Microsoft Art Collection, West Collection, Jameel Foundation, Espacio SOLO, the collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody, and the collection of H.H. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan.