Kader Attia “Show Your Injuries”
Lehmann Maupin (201 Chrystie Street)
This event has ended.
Attia grew up in both Algeria and the suburbs of Paris, and he uses this experience of living as a part of two distinct and diverse cultures as a starting point to develop a dynamic practice that reflects on the aesthetics and ethics of different societies. He takes a poetic and symbolic approach to exploring the wide-ranging repercussions of Western cultural hegemony and colonialism on non-Western cultures, investigating identity politics of historical and colonial eras, and in our modern, globalized world. Attia assumes the roles of historian, anthropologist, philosopher, and ethnographer through his art-making process, and his nuanced international perspective informs the works on display in this exhibition.
At Chrystie Street, Attia will create a new work titled Asesinos ! Asesinos ! (2014), a large-scale installation of over 100 doors split and re-joined as A-frame sculptures. Standing upright and confronting viewers as they enter the gallery, the doors recall a crowd of demonstrators activating a common space, a point that is affirmed through the megaphones affixed to the tops of some of the doors. The installation’s group of anthropomorphic forms alludes to the type of gatherings that have taken place in various public spaces across the world in recent times, demonstrations of clashing values about political views and social space and other politicized issues. The door can also be seen as a metaphor for barriers, confinement, and opportunities for freedom that may be experienced in various realms of modern society.
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Schedule
from November 08, 2014 to December 14, 2014