Kader Attia

artist, Berlin
Kader Attia is an artist who explores the wide-ranging effects of western cultural hegemony and colonialism. Central to his inquiry are the concepts of injury and repair, which he uses to connect diverse bodies of knowledge, including architecture, m
Kader Attia is an artist who explores the wide-ranging effects of western cultural hegemony and colonialism. Central to his inquiry are the concepts of injury and repair, which he uses to connect diverse bodies of knowledge, including architecture, music, psychoanalysis, medical science, and traditional healing and spiritual beliefs. Throughout his multimedia practice—ranging from sculpture to film installation—reparation does not mark a return to an intact state, but instead makes visible the immaterial scars of psychic injury. This approach is informed by Attia’s experience of growing up between Algeria and the Paris banlieues.Attia’s work has been shown in biennials such as the Shanghai Biennial; Gwangju Biennial; Manifesta, Palermo; Venice Biennial, Venice; and Documenta, Kassel. Notable solo exhibitions include Kader Attia. Remembering the Future, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich, 2020, The Museum of Emotion, The Hayward Gallery, London, 2019; Scars Remind Us that Our Past is Real, Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona, 2018; Roots also grow in concrete, MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine, 2018; Repairing the Invisible, SMAK, Ghent, 2017; The Injuries are Here, Musée Cantonal des Beaux Arts, Lausanne, 2015; contre nature, Beirut Art Center, Beirut, 2014; and Continuum of Repair: The Light of Jacob’s Ladder, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2013. Attia has shown in group exhibitions at venues such as MoMA, New York; Tate Modern, London; and Centre Pompidou, Paris. Attia has been awarded the Marcel Duchamp Prize (2016), the Joan Miró Prize (2016), and the Yanghyun Art Prize (2017). In 2016, Kader Attia founded La Colonie in Paris’s Gare du Nord area as an open space for decolonial thinking, debate, and cultural activism. Attia is the appointed curator for the 12th Berlin Biennale in 2022. Attia lives and works in Berlin and Paris.

related


Image: Exhibition Fragments of Repair/Ka
Image: Exhibition Fragments of Repair/Kader Attia, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, 2021, photo: Tom Janssen / Design: Sean van den Steenhoven for Leftloft
Kader Attia, Les Entrelacs de l’Objet
Kader Attia, Les Entrelacs de l’Objet / The Object’s Interlacing, 2020, installatiebeeld 2021, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
Kader Attia, Oil and Sugar #2, 2007, vid
Kader Attia, Oil and Sugar #2, 2007, video, installation view BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, 2021
Image: Kader Attia, Reason’s Oxymorons
Image: Kader Attia, Reason’s Oxymorons, 2015, video installation, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, 2021, photo: Tom Janssen
Image: Kader Attia, Les Entrelacs de lâ€
Image: Kader Attia, Les Entrelacs de l’Objet / The Object’s Interlacing, 2020, installation with video and objects, installation view, 2021, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, photo: Tom Janssen / Design: Sean van den Steenhoven for Leftloft
Design by Sean van den Steenhoven*
Design by Sean van den Steenhoven*

Work by Kader Attia at Stadhuisbrug, Utrecht

Kader Attia, Oil and Sugar #2, 2007, ins
Kader Attia, Oil and Sugar #2, 2007, installation in the window of Stadhuisbrug 5, Utrecht, by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, 2021, photo: Tom Janssen
Kader Attia, Reason’s Oxymorons, 2015,
Kader Attia, Reason’s Oxymorons, 2015, video installation, installation view BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, 2021, photo: Tom Janssen
Image: Kader Attia, The Body’s Legacie
Image: Kader Attia, The Body’s Legacies, Pt. 2: The Postcolonial Body, video, 2018, 48 min., film still / Design: Sean van den Steenhoven
Kader Attia speaking during the opening
Kader Attia speaking during the opening program of Fragments of Repair, view from La Dynamo de Banlieues Bleues, Pantin, Paris, 17 April 2021, photo courtesy of La Colonie
Three-month collective study program La
Three-month collective study program La Colonie Nomade, which was hosted by La Dynamo de Banlieues Bleues in Paris, from 17 April to 3 July 2021
Kader Attia, Reason’s Oxymorons, 2015,
Kader Attia, Reason’s Oxymorons, 2015, video installation, courtesy of the artist, The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, and Lehmann Maupin, photo: Max Yawney
Kader Attia, Reason’s Oxymorons, 2015,
Kader Attia, Reason’s Oxymorons, 2015, video installation, installation view BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, 2021, photo: Tom Janssen
Panel Working in Groups, Acting in Netwo
Panel Working in Groups, Acting in Networks during the fifth public program of Propositions #9: Deserting from the Culture Wars, organized in the context of the project Trainings for the Not-Yet, 17 November 2019, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, p