Andréhn-Schiptjenko

Kader Attia

23 Mar - 06 May 2006

KADER ATTILA
"Sweet Sweat"

Andréhn-Schiptjenko has great pleasure in presenting Kader Attia’s first solo-exhibition at the gallery. The opening will take place Thursday March 23 between 5-8 pm and the exhibition runs through May 6.
Born 1970 in a suburb of Paris to parents of Algerian origin, Attia had an upbringing at the image of his name; Muslim, Christian and Jewish. His work evolves around ideas of human identity and the universal desire to belong and be recognised, but also deals with repression, discrimination and the need to differentiate oneself from the “other”. 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 transsexuals and transvestites exiled in Paris and subsequently shown at The Venice Biennale in 2003.
From there on Attia’s work oscillates between installations (The Dream Machine at the Venice Biennale 2003 and The Sweat Shop at Art Basel Miami Beach 2004), video-work (Shadow at Video Zone, Tel Aviv 2004) and photography (Alter Ego at Sketch Gallery, London 2005). Recent projects include the critically acclaimed Flying Rats at the Lyon Biennial, a schoolyard with 45 children made of grain, enclosed in a cage with 150 living doves, as well as Fortune Cookies in Canton, China, where Attia bought an entire Chinese restaurant in Paris and had it sent back to its country of origin.
The exhibition at Andréhn-Schiptjenko will consist 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. Kader Attia is currently represented with a large-scale installation, Arabesque, in the exhibition Notre Histoire at The Palais de Tokyo (Paris, until May 7). At ArtUnlimited (Art Basel, June 14-18) we will exhibit Attia’s new installation Infinities. He will be recipient of a IASPIS residency in Stockholm at a time yet to be determined.

For further information and visuals, please contact the gallery.

© Kader Attia
 

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