Kader Attia deals with colonial and post-colonial history and sensitively unfolds the complicated and “imbalanced” relationships between the Western and non-Western world and their mutual cultural, political, social, and technological exchange. One of his interests is architecture and the setting it creates with its spatial and political dimension. Using modern architecture as a critical example of an – often – malfunctioning living environment is an occurring subject of Attia’s work. Rooted in both the tradition and context of the Occident and the Orient, his work implies different meanings and translations using inconspicuous visual symbols and semantic references.
As an artist, Attia works with different types of media. The exhibition at the VI PER Gallery presents a selection of his photographs, collages and a video, all of them intertwined by the themes of architecture. The exhibited artworks were created between 2003–2018.
Kader Attia’s work has been shown in group shows and biennials such as the 12th Shanghai Biennial (2018); the 12th Gwangju Biennial (2018); Manifesta 12 in Palermo (2018); the 57th Biennale di Venezia (2017); and dOCUMENTA 13 in Kassel (2012); and at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Met Breuer, New York; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, among many others. Recent and notable solo exhibitions include The Museum of Emotion, The Hayward Gallery, London (2019); Scars Remind Us that Our Past is Real, Fundacio Joan Miró, Barcelona (2018); Les racines poussent aussi dans le béton, Musée d’art contemporain de Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine (2018); The Field of Emotion, The Power Plant, Toronto (2018); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2017); Repairing the Invisible, SMAK, Ghent (2017); Sacrifice and Harmony, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main (2016); The Injuries are Here, Musée Cantonal des Beaux Arts de Lausanne (2015); Contre Nature, Beirut Art Center (2014); Continuum of Repair: The Light of Jacob’s Ladder, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013); and Repair: 5 Acts, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2013).
In 2016, Kader Attia was awarded with the Marcel Duchamp Prize, followed by the Prize of the Miró Foundation, Barcelona, and the Yanghyun Prize, Seoul, in 2017.
