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= Kader Attia =

Biography
Kader Attia was born on December 30, 1970 in Dugny, France. He grew up moving between Algeria and the suburbs of Paris. He was surrounded by several cultures which provided him with many experiences that he would draw from when creating his art. At eleven, Attia began his practice with photography before moving to collage, sculpture and large scale installation. From 1991 until 1993, Attia attended Ecole Supérieure des Arts Appliqués ‘Duperré’ in Paris, and then attended Escolar de Artes Applicades ‘La Massana’ in Barcelona until 1994. Having finished his studies at art schools in Paris and Barcelona, he also spent two years in Congo before completing the seminal work La Piste d'atterissage (The Landing strip) 2000, a slide show describing the intimate world of Algerian transgenders exiled in Paris, which was subsequently shown at The Venice Biennale in 2003. Attia tackles the increasingly difficult relationship between Europe and immigrants, particularly those of Islamic faith. In 2005, Kader Attia was nominated for the Marcel Duchamp Prize. Attia has lived in Israel, Sweden, Boston, Canada, and Texas, and currently works and lives in Paris, France.

Inspiration
Most of Attia’s work focuses on universal issues that can be shown to audiences everywhere, regardless of any cultural, religious, or national borders. One concept that often shows up in his work is the state of “repair.” Repair, according to Attia refers to any issue in Human Nature that is always being repaired. Some themes of repair Attia explores include gender, architecture, science, philosophy, culture, and nature. These themes are then explored through the aesthetics and ethics of different cultures.

The experience of growing up in two different countries is something that influences Attia’s art. His work often explores contrasting worlds, especially Western influence on Non-Western cultures. He explores this by investigating identity politics of historical and colonial eras, anywhere from tradition to modernity.

The issue of re-appropriation is also a theme that can be seen in Attia’s work. Re-appropriation is the cultural process by which a group takes artifacts, traditions, erms, etc., and reclaims them, often disparaging them.The concept arose within European anarchism during the Industrial Revolution. Attia often connects this term to his ideas of repair, by exploring the ways the cultural traditions of Non-Western nations evolve and survive as they are influenced by Western nations, through colonization.

Style and Technique
When looking at Attia’s work as a whole, each piece is vastly different from the next. His works range from a small mixed media painting that hangs on a wall, to an installation that takes up a whole room. Some of the media he works with includes, drawing, painting, photography, film, and the installation of common materials. With the wide spectrum of materials, it can be difficult for the audience to pinpoint his exact “style.” In 2007, when asked to comment on his creative process in an interview with Chief Curator of Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, Nicholas Baume, Attia explains the following: “Martin Kippenberger, when accused by a critic of having no style, answered, ‘My style is that I do not have one.’ This is a reference for me. Because I care a lot about the form, I want it always to be adapted to my concept. Otherwise, all the work would be similar. What is important to me is the ‘scientific’ or experimental aspect of art. I want to search for, use, and try different forms of language that are relevant to my subject.” Since Attia has a strong focus on the concepts and themes behind his work, it is important to be able to adapt his style to the concept he is working with. This way, each piece is a different and unique experience to his audience.

In the same interview, Attia also talks about the importance of collaboration in his work. In 2007, Attia worked with students from Massachusetts College of Art for his installation, Momentum 9, that was displayed at the Institute of Contemporary Art. Attia explained that collaborating with others is not only an extra set of hands to help assemble a large installation, but participation in the work also contributes to an experience that can’t be achieved by just viewing a piece.

Exhibitions
Kader Attia’s first solo exhibition was in 1996 entitled Humanistes au Congo in the French Cultural Center in Brazzaville, Congo. Since then, Attia has had thirty seven solo exhibitions and ten group shows. Attia’s first large solo exhibition was his Sweet Sweat at Andréhn- Schiptjenko in 2006. This consisted of two large site-specific sculptures, using ready-mades normally associated with acts of violence and repression, as well as a series of ink drawings and wall paintings. Attia’s first solo exhibition in the United States is called Momentum 9. This work evoked themes of absence, recalling his memories of sleeping with four other kids in a room on beds made of wooden boards and cheap foam. A crowded dormitory was created in the gallery with the help of the students from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and the ICA Arts Council. Another large exhibit for Kader Attia was Ghost in 2001. The work, located in Belgium, engages the entire space of the gallery, filling the room with lightweight aluminum forms cast from the bodies of kneeling women.. Attia’s most recent exhibition in the United States was But a Storm is Blowing from Paradise from April to October of 2016. The exhibition underscores an important central question: How is the designation Middle East defined and understood both regionally and internationally? It considers the impact of historical colonization and present-day globalization. The exhibit also examines how the region is marked by its intertwined histories and traditions using a multi-year collaboration that charts creative activity in three geographic regions—South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa.

Full List of Solo- Exhibits
2016

16.04.2016 — 14.08.2016 Sacrifice and Harmony, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

2015

31.10.2015—28.11.2015, Reason’s Oxymorons, Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin/ Germany.

22.05.2015 — 30.08.2015 The Injuries are Here, Musée Cantonal des Beaux Arts de Lausanne, Lausanne / Switzerland.

01.05.2015 — 20.06.2015 Scarification, Self Skin’s Architecture, Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin / Germany.

17.04.2015 — 16.05.2015 Complementary Conversations, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna/ Austria

27.03.2015 — 3.06.2015 Ghost, Stiftelsen 3,14, Bergen/ Norway.

2014

08.11.2014 — 14.12.2014 Show Your Injuries, Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York / USA.

25.10.2014 — 29.03.2015 Culture, another nature repaired, Middelheim Museum, Antwerpen / Belgium.

22.05.14 — 22.08.14 Contre Nature, Beirut Art Center, Beirut/ Lebanon

10.05.2014 — 08.08.2014 Beginning of the World, Galleria Continua, Beijing/ China.

2013

26.11.2013 — 23.11.2014 Continuum of Repair: The Light of Jacob’s Ladder, Whitechapel Gallery, London/UK.

26.05.2013 — 25.08.2013 Reparatur 5. Akte, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin / Germany.

22.05.2013 Les Terrasses, Public Commission, outdoor work, La Digue du Large, Marseille / France.

2012

25.05.2012 — 19.08.2012 Construire, déconstruire, reconstruire: Le Corps Utopique, Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris/ France.

11.02.2012 — 31.03.2012 Essential, Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Italy.

28.01.2012 — 03.03.2012 Collages, Galerie Christian Nagel, Berlin / Germany.

2011

17.02.2011 — 12.03.2011 Ghost, Galerie Christian Nagel, Antwerp / Belgium.

2010

06.06.2010 — 04.09.2010 Holy Land, Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Italy.

2009

29.10.2009 — 04.12.2009 Political, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna / Austria.

22.09.2009 — 31.10.2009 As a fold, Horizon is not a space, Galerie Christian Nagel, Berlin / Germany.

03.04.2009 — 31.10. 2009 Kasbah, Centre de Création Contemporaine de Tours, Tours / France.

13.02.2009 — 22.03.2009 Signs of Reappropriation, SCAD, Savannah/ USA.

2008

04.07.2008 — 28.09.2008 Black&White: sign of times, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Huarte, Huarte / Spain.

29.02.2008 — 25.05.2008 Kader Attia-New Works, Henry Art Gallery, Faye G. Allen Center for the Visual Art, University of Washington, Seattle / USA.

2007

14.11.2007 — 2.03.2008 Momentum 9, ICA, Boston / USA.

21.09.2007 — 13.01.2008 Square Dreams, BALTIC Center for Contemporary Art, Newcastle / UK.

28.04.2007 — 02.06.2007 Do what you want but don’t tell anybody, Christian Nagel Gallery, Berlin / Germany.

2006

21.10.2006 – 07.01.2007 Tsunami, Magasin, CNAC, Grenoble / France.

16.06.2006 – 13.08.2006 Kader Attia, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, Lyon / France.

23.03.2006 – 06.05.2006 Sweet sweat, Andréhn-Schiptjenko Gallery, Stockholm /Sweden.

2004

27.02.2004 – 27.03.2004 Hallal, Kamel Mennout Gallery, Paris / France.

2002

19.04.2002 – 14.05.2002 Alter Ego, Kamel Mennour Gallery, Paris / France.

2001

Photostories, Martine et Thibault de la Châtre, Paris / France.

2000

26.01.2000 – 28.02.2000 La Piste d’Atterrissage, l’Atelier, Centre National de la Photographie, Paris / France.

1997

Instants Urbains, Galerie l’Oeil du huit, Paris / France.

1996

Humanistes au Congo, Centre Culturel Français de Brazzaville, Brazzaville / Congo.

Public Perception
The originality of Attia’s work draws a wide range of perspectives and opinions from his audience. Each piece is meant to be an experience that provokes deep thought within the viewer. And although each piece has a different theme or underlying message, there is a lot of similarity as to the journey in which the viewer takes to draw their conclusions. At first sight, Attia’s work can appear hazy to his audience, his intended message hiding beneath the surface. However, after taking the time to get a closer look, the statement Attia is trying to make slowly unfolds.

Perhaps one of the most prominent examples of this is Attia’s installation, Untitled (Ghardaia) (2009), Attia used couscous as a medium to create a piece resembling the immigrant population in the city of Ghardaia. In a critique by Kobena Mercer that was published in the magazine Utopia and Monument, Mercer talks about the confusion the medium presented, but when taking a deeper look, it’s significance presents itself. “The couscous has a precarious existence because it might be blown away by the wind or eaten by birds – it is constantly at risk of disappearing, becoming invisible. In this sense it acts as a metonym for the immigrant presence in the city of Graz for the cracked wheat is a signifier of cultural difference and not just an arbitrary volatile substance.” While many people find significance in Attia’s artistic choices, others have opposite opinions. In a review for a recreation of the same installation in the New York Times, Holland Cotter has a different take, saying “ I have problems with this piece, which feels too much like an overproduced, audience-pleasing ethnic joke.” Attia’s intentions when it comes to his work is to get his audience to think, no matter what their thoughts are.