Kader Attia

by Jean-Louis Pradel, Kader Attia (Artist), Yves Aupetitallot (Editor)

Kader Attia was born into the North African immigrant community of the banlieue, Paris's gritty suburbs. His work, which examines the tangle of identity conflicts that have contributed to recent political turmoil there, has been influenced by his European training, by two years in Congo, and by much beyond those two apparent extremes. It is rooted in the complex relations between East and West, and reflects their charged connections, where a scrambled home culture meets a seductive consumer culture. This first monograph includes his installations for the 2003 Venice Biennale and Art Basel Miami in 2004, along with video, photography and drawings. His most recent projects include the critically acclaimed "Flying Rats" of the Lyon Biennale 2005--a schoolyard enclosed in a cage, in which 45 children sculpted in grain were slowly eaten by 150 pigeons--and "Fortune Cookies," which saw an entire Chinese restaurant bought in Paris shipped back to its country of alleged origin.

112 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2007

About the author

Born in 1946, Jean-Louis Pradel is an historian, critic and art columnist who has been teaching humanities and contemporary art history at the École nationale supérieure des Arts Decoratifs since 1976. He has also been hosting “Encounters Discussion Groups” every week since this date, where he invites cultural newsmakers to the school in an open forum to talk about their work. He is a contributor to various journals and reviews such as “La Quinzaine Litteraire” and “Opus International”, of which he is the editor; from 1984 to 2000 he wrote for “L’Événement du Jeudi” and has been an “arts” columnist for various audio-visual programmes such as “Le Cercle de Minuit” on Antenne 2. Jean-Louis Pradel has published over twenty books including “La Cooperative des Malassis” (1977), “Art 82”, “Art 83-84“, “Jean-Michel Wimotte” (1988) “La Figuration Narrative” (2000 and 2008), “Picabia” (2002), “L’Art Contemporain” (2004) and “Proweller” (2007). He has also been exhibition commissioner for numerous exhibitions in France and abroad such as “Mythologies Quotidiennes 2”, (MAM 1977), “Le Style et le Chaos” ( Luxembourg Museum 1985), “Estruandos”, (Tamayo Museum Mexico 1987), “Julio Le Parc” (Espace Electra 1996), “Yann Kersale” (Tokyo 1998), “Voyages d’Artistes” (Espace Electra 2003) and “L’Amour de l’Art” (Agen 2007).

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've had the pleasure of working with this artist to create part of his New Work exhibit at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle. Different than almost anything you can wrap your head around, his work has an intensity that begs us to ask questions. Why? How? WHAT? And that's exactly his point. He encourages us to be in the 'questioning' stage asking "What must have taken place for *this* to happen?" No judgements or automatic assessments, just ask "why?"

If you're interested in Kader's work this book provides insight in to where it comes from, magnifying his premise that art "comes from inside."