Rachid Khimoune Exhibition
Vallois America
This event has ended.
Friedman & Vallois will present for the first time and in exclusivity the work of French artist Rachid Khimoune.
Berber in origin, he grew up in Paris suburbs, in a housing project. All his work is imbued with this dual cultural heritage, which finds itself in his choices of mixed and found materials and objects.
On the occasion of this exhibition, Rachid Khimoune will be presenting a recent series of totems, masks, and tortoises.
Totems and masks, made during the past five years, evoke Africa and its traditions with humour, assembling disparate scraps of modern life and fusing them into a new identity playing with their initial definitions. Thus, the “Conversation Tree” and “Burkina”, totems combine bronze and iron with a literal gas jet. The Totem “Queen of the Night” combines bronze, iron, wood and container for a head. Through his works, he evokes the universality of the expert bronze worker, whether of African or Chinese origin.
Furthermore, tortoises, drawn or sculpted and symbols of longevity, occupy a prominent place in his work. Khimoune states “The tortoise chases bad luck and evil spirits. it is the image of wisdom”, which is a philosophy his mother taught him. Helmets of soldiers replace the shells, an approach for him to denounce his abhorrence of war. He expresses this dramatically when Khimoune installed a thousand tortoises on Omaha Beach on June 6, 2011, commemorating the landing of allies in France marking the beginning of the conclusion World War II.
Media
Schedule
from November 08, 2012 to December 21, 2012
Opening Reception on 2012-11-08 from 18:00 to 20:00