Kader Attia

Kader Attia’s videos, installations, photographs and drawings are mostly inspired by his own life experience, and thus often refer to the difficult task of bridging different cultures. Frequently executed with objects dissociated from their original function, his work questions, in a rather direct fashion, the notions of uprooting, identity and religion as withdrawal into an exclusive community. Moreover, Attia continues his exploration of the myths and the poetry of emptiness/void.

Kader Attia was born in 1970 in Dugny, in Seine-Saint-Denis, France of Algerian parents. He studied at the École Supérieure des Arts Appliqués Duperré in Paris, followed by a one-year study at the Massana School of Applied Arts in Barcelona, Spain and finally at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décorartifs of Paris from 1996 to 1998. He currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
 
His work has been shown in numerous museums worldwide, like at the Centro de Arte Contemporaneo, Huarte, Spain, the ICA in Boston, the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, the Kitchen and Artist Space in New York, the Kunstwerk in Berlin, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and at the Sternersen Museum in Oslo, Norway.

He has also taken part in various biennales among which; the 50th Venice Biennale, the 8th Lyon Biennale, the Havana Biennale and the Sydney Biennale in 2010. Kader Attia was one of the winners of the Abraaj Art Capital Prize in 2009.