Zineb Sedira “Present Tense”
Taymour Grahne Gallery
[Image: Zineb Sedira "Broken lens I" (2011), C-print, 47.24h x 31.5w in. © Zineb Sedira / DACS, London, Courtesy the artist, Kamel Mennour, Paris and Taymour Grahne Gallery, New York]
This event has ended.
Taymour Grahne Gallery presents Zineb Sedira: Present Tense. The exhibition marks the internationally acclaimed artist’s first solo presentation in the United Sates. Curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath of Art Reoriented, it features a number of seminal works, ranging from photography and video to installation and sculpture.
The exhibition Zineb Sedira: Present Tense features a first-time adaptation of End of the Road (2010), one of Sedira’s most elaborate multimedia installations comprising a two-channel video and one hundred light boxes. In discussing the work, Sedira said: “The curators originally commissioned the work for Told, Untold Retold, the inaugural contemporary art exhibition of Mathaf, Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha. I was happy to conceive an adapted version on the occasion of my solo show in New York.” Other works in the show include Registre du phare (2011) and Museum of Traces (2013), two archive-based photographic series about Lighthouses that have survived from times of French colonial rule in Algeria. Finally, some of Zineb Sedira’s earlier works will also be on view, such as her iconic The Lovers I (2008) from the series Death of a Journey, depicting a ship graveyard situated in Nouadhibou, Mauritania, and Broken Lens (2011), as well as the more recent works Sugar Silo I and II (2013) and the sculptures Sugar Routes II - 1 and 2 (2013).
In explaining the curatorial concept for the exhibition, Bardaouil and Fellrath stated:
“This selection of works highlights the way in which Zineb Sedira explores the anxieties underlying the current moment. In doing so, she uncovers the persistent historical struggles of a fading past. While it may refract the past, her work is primarily concerned with the present; one that reveals an ongoing tension.”
Zineb Sedira was born in Paris to Algerian parents. She is based in London since 1986, and works between Algiers, Paris, and London. Her work is included in International Museum collections such as Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne in Paris, Tate Modern and The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Museum Moderner Kunst (Mumok) in Vienna, Mathaf, Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha and the Sharjah Art Foundation in Sharjah. Zineb Sedira is the founder and director of aria, artist residency in Algiers, Algeria. She is shortlisted for the 2015 Marcel Duchamp Prize that is awarded by the Association pour la Diffusion Internationale de l’Art Français (ADIAF).
Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath co-founded Art Reoriented in 2009 as a multidisciplinary curatorial platform based in Munich and New York. Integral to Bardaouil and Fellrath’s practice is the critique of conventional art-historical classifications and the interrogation of traditional mechanisms by which contemporary art is understood. Through their work, they excavate art-historical materials, with specific interest in multiple modernities, for the purpose of questioning the way artists and artworks have been appropriated by diverse modes of representation.
Some of their recent exhibitions include Mona Hatoum: Turbulence at Mathaf, Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha (2014), Songs of Loss and Songs of Love at the Gwangju Museum of Art in South Korea (2014), and I Spy With My Little Eye… at the Mosaic Rooms in London and Casa Arabe in Madrid and Cordoba (2015).. In 2013, Bardaouil and Fellrath were the curators of the Lebanese Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, and of the comprehensive retrospective Paul Guiragossian: The Human Condition at the Beirut Exhibition Center. They also curated Mathaf’s inaugural contemporary art exhibition Told Untold Retold (2010–2011) and the critically acclaimed international traveling exhibition Tea with Nefertiti (2012–2014).
Bardaouil and Fellrath have held teaching positions at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, the London School of Economics, the Singapore Institute of Management, and the American University of Beirut among other institutions. Their academic research projects include collaborations with numerous institutions such as the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (INHA) in Paris, the Haus der Kunst in Munich, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
Media
Schedule
from November 12, 2015 to January 16, 2016
Opening Reception on 2015-11-12 from 18:00 to 20:00