Growing up in Iraq in the 1970s, Wafaa Bilal dreamed of being an artist. But when he applied to university, he was told that due to a family member’s disloyalty he would have to study geography instead. After classes, Bilal made art anyway—installations that criticized Saddam Hussein’s regime—and was arrested and beaten. After two years in a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia, teaching art, Bilal made it to the U.S. in 1992. It was the start of a long exile. When the Iraq War broke out, Bilal staged a 30-day protest: he locked himself in a room with a remote-controlled paintball gun, which online viewers could fire at him. Foul-smelling yellow paint exploded against the walls and his body. This exhibition sees Bilal reflecting on the tensions between his two homes: the “comfort zone” of the U.S. and the “conflict zone” of Iraq. —Elena Clavarino