Kader Attia
Friday, 14 June 2013
Works from REPAIR. 5 ACTS and dOCUMENTA (13).
“REPAIR. 5 ACTS at KW Institute for Contemporary Art is French-Algerian artist Kader Attia’s first institutional solo exhibition in Germany. For KW, Attia develops a site-specific installation in five acts, which applies his concept of “repair” as reconstruction in a wider sense to political, cultural and scientific topics, examining their various interactions.
The exhibition places subjects Attia has been working with for several years in relation to each other, at times associatively and at times as framing an argument. He combines the European approach to its own colonial past within the framework of World War I with struggles for independence on the African continent, with current migration politics and with mechanisms of identity construction. In this installation, Attia further examines his longstanding research into processes of re-appropriation, as most recently presented at dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel.
Attia develops a dramaturgy that leads the audience through the installations as if it were an obstacle course and prompts the visitor to reflect without prescribing any pre-determined perspectives. Each of the five acts illuminates the topos of “repair” from a different point of view, so that an overall picture of Attia’s concept of “repair” unfolds as the course is completed act for act.
The artistic practice of Kader Attia (born in 1970 in Dugny) is characterized by his life between various European and African cultures and places and their contrasts and differences. Attia’s spatial installations, videos and photographs draw their potential from the tension between sensually experiential forms and content which examine our constructions of realities.” –KW Institute for Contemporary Art