Kader Attia
Born to Algerian parents, Kader Attia spent his childhood between the Parisian suburbs and Algiers. His comings and goings, his stays in Congo-Brazzaville and Venezuela, and his dual training in philosophy and fine art have had a decisive influence on his work, which explores the relationship between Western thought and non-Western cultures, and the complex cultural, aesthetic, economic and political ties between the East and the West.
His early works address issues of identity and gender differences within the immigrant community (La piste d’atterrissage, 2000–2002, a slideshow about Algerian transsexuals in exile in Paris; Shadow, 2003, a subversive video showing a man performing a belly dance) and also examine the impact of consumer society on religious practices (Hallal, 2004; Tawaaf, 2008).
Subsequently, his works relating to architecture and public space gave rise to ‘a more abstract urban poetics’. The modernist aesthetic was then imbued with social criticism in works such as *Arabesque* (2006), *Skyline* (2007), a landscape of refrigerators/skyscrapers covered in small mirrored squares, and Holy Land (2007–2010), a cemetery of mirrors installed facing the sea on a beach in the Canary Islands, evoking both Robert Smithson’s ‘Mirrors of the Yucatán’ and the lost hopes of many immigrants.
Through this increasingly assertive ‘allegorical minimalism’ (Oil and Sugar, 2007; Concrete Blocks, 2008; Narcisso, 2012) and works that engage the body and architecture (Kasbah, 2009, History of Reappropriation, 2010), Kader Attia develops ambitious projects, such as those at documenta 13 (2012) and Marseille 2013.
