Kader Attia spent much of his childhood between Algeria and France and lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Venezuela as a young adult. With such a background, a key component of his work is the question of cultural conflict. Approaching his work with a multicultural lens, Kader Attia is known for exploring the legacy of colonialism: the ongoing impact of Western culture and politics on the Middle East and North Africa, as well as the impact within Western countries themselves.
Read MoreWorking across a range of media, materials, scales and symbols, Attia’s many individual series at first appear self-contained. However, he continually returns to the overarching themes of the impact of politics, culture, and cultural displacement, maintaining a sustained critical look at the complexities of modern life.
Using unconventional materials including couscous and plastic bags, Kader Attia explores how non-Western people construct and shape their identities in the face of, in the knowledge of, or in the shadow of Western cultural hegemony. A notable aspect of his practice—one that enables an exploration of this dichotomy—is his focus on architecture: exploring the disparities and similarities between East and West in order to highlight and rectify the social and political divides between the two cultures.
Kader Attia studied at the École Supérieure des Arts Appliqués Duperré, Paris; the Escola Massana, Centre d’Art i Disseny, Barcelona; and the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. His work has been included in major international art exhibitions including the 12th Gwangju Biennale (2018); 12th Shanghai Biennale (2018); 13th Lyon Biennale (2015); dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel (2012); and the 54th Venice Biennale (2011), among others.
In March 2021, Kader Attia was announced as the curator of the 12th Berlin Biennale.
Georgia Messervy | Ocula | 2021
Ocula Magazine was in Venice to review some of the exhibitions taking place parallel to the 59th Venice Biennale.
More than 150 artists will present work when the Emirati exhibition takes place for the 15th time.
International artists taking part include Kader Attia, Cao Fei, and Anne Imhof.
Curator Odile Burluraux discusses her latest project at ASIA NOW, a special programme of video works by ten women artists from Iran.
A resplendent display of 272 fuchsia-colored paper lotus lanterns adorns the light-filled oculus on The Rubin Museum of Art's top floor. The sweeping circular installation, Lotus: Zone of Zero (2019
In the first week of June, Britain and France played host to a vast spectacle on the 75th anniversary of D-Day. The commemoration events, tracing the timetable of the Normandy landings as they unfolde
LONDON — A cluster of snails are glued, like barnacles on a ship, to a disused metal post, which stands in a field of dry grass, a shabby apartment block looming in the background. In the photograph,
In 2009, when Kader Attia visited Picasso and the Masters at Paris's Grand Palais, he was surprised to find that the show included works by Caravaggio, El Greco and Cézanne, yet made no mention of t