Construire, déconstruire, reconstruire: le corps utopique

Associated media

Kader Attia

Room 20, Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris

25 May  – 19 August 2012

Kader Attia has been invited to present, in the permanent collection of the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, a monographic show centred on La Piste d'atterrissage (2003), a work acquired by the museum in 2006. This slide-show describes the private life of Algerian transsexuals exiled in Paris. Strangers in their own body as well as in a different culture, they build their identity by re-appropriating both fields.

Postulating that the body is the first architecture, Kader Attia articulates his proposal around the idea of repairing and re-apropriation, a recurring theme at the origin of his work.  An invocative narration of the body’s utopias and the modernity is created in the projections, objects, collages that mix characters, urban landscapes and vernacular architectures, which comprise the exhibition. The artist offers a reflection on transgression and imagination in honour of Michel Foucault (The utopic body) and Le Corbusier.

This project is part of a series of invitations addressed to the artists whose works have recently enriched the collection. It is an occasion for a concentrated mediation between the MAC/VAL, which has also invited Kader Attia to show a specific work  for the new presentation of its collection ‘Vivement demain’ (‘Can’t wait for tomorrow’).

 
Kader Attiawas born in 1970 in Paris to Algerian parents. He studied Philosophy and Art in Paris. In 1993, he spent a year at the Escola de Artes Applicades in Barcelona. His first solo show took place in 1996 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since then, he has frequently been shown around the world. 


Kader Attia’s childhood, between France and Algeria, oscillating between ChristianWestern and Muslim Maghreb, had a determining impact on his work. Using his own identities as a starting point, he questions the ever more complicated relation between Europe and its immigrants, particularly those of Muslim faith. 
By doing this, he does not restrict himself to one medium to explore controversial subjects. 
Kader Attia acquired international recognition at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and at the Lyon Biennale in 2005.
Since 2007, many exhibitions have been dedicated to him, more recently ‘Kasbah’ at the CCC of Tours, 2009; ‘Black and White: Signs of Times’ at the Centro de Arte Contemporaneo in Huarte, Spain, as well as taking part in group shows.

Kader Attia lives and works in Berlin / Germany and in Alger / Algeria.

Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 11 avenue du Président Wilson - 75116 Paris - Tél. 01 53 67 40 00