SAÂDANE AFIF

Sâadane Afif’s installations, objects, concerts and performances draw on works or events from art history, music and poetry. His long-term project The Fountain Archives began in 2008 with a collection of magazines, catalogues and books and ended in 2022 with the publication of an index to Marcel Duchamp’s (1887–1968) famous readymade of a urinal, which sparked debate in 1917 about what art is. The exhibition also features the 2010 work L’Humour noir, a replica of the Centre Pompidou cultural centre in Paris, which raises questions about the history of the avant-garde in the 20th century and its legacy in the museum. Also on display are the new works The Old, which refers to Jeff Koons’ 1980s series The New, and Live, a continuously updated presentation featuring posters announcing cultural events, which the artist adopts as readymades and transforms into a narrative about the city’s vibrant cultural life.

Afif invited artists, writers and musicians to create poetic texts, or ‘lyrics,’ to accompany all of the works presented in the exhibition. These lyrics are displayed on the walls and also serve as the starting point for performances that will be presented at various locations across Berlin between May and July 2026.

Saȃdane Afif (born 1970 in Vendôme, France) lives in Berlin. He has exhibited at Documenta 12 (2007), the 8th Berlin Biennale (2014), and the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), and was awarded the Prix Marcel Duchamp in 2009. He has held solo exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2010), the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main (2012), the Kunsthalle Wien and WIELS in Brussels (2018), among others. Afif took part in the exhibition and concert project Scores at Hamburger Bahnhof in 2016 and was the artistic director of the Bergen Assembly in Norway in 2022.