Kader Attia: Transformations

Edited by Ellen Blumenstein.

The manifold entanglements of African and Western culture are a central motif in the oeuvre of the Algerian-French artist Kader Attia. The influence of traditional African architecture on European modernism forms the background for his voluminous spatial installations, videos and photographs, as much as the reappropriation of North and South American black music within African Jazz and Pop of the 1960s up to the 1980s. His work manifests the productivity of dissonance; where African masks, stuffed animals, scientific instruments, and historical artifacts seemingly have nothing in common, the artist unearths connections between Europe’s handling of its own colonial history, current migration politics, and the urbanistic realities of its metropolises of today. Based on Kader Attia’s solo show Repair: 5 Acts at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, this publication focuses on works from the years 2008–2013 and places them in a broader art historical concept.

Kader Attia, Ritual #1, 2017 mirror with fabric. Photo: Max Yawney. Courtesy the Artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong

Kader Attia | Le grand miroir du monde, 2017, mirrors, site specific dimension. Photo Ela Bialkowska 

Kader Attia. Mimesis as Résistance, 2013, African masks, stuffed animals, framed image, 202,5 x 177,05 x 63,5 cm, Photographe Simon Vogel / Courtesy: the artist and Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin/Cologne