Saâdane Afif

In his work, Saâdane Afif favours a playful yet eclectic approach, which he tends to share with other artists from across the spectrum, involving musicians along with critics and writers.  His working method is based on the idea of keeping the outcome open to all possibilities throughout the production of the piece, up until the final result.  Whilst moving away from a more egotistic approach the artist quotes widely from other artists, involving materials and forms in a transformation cycle which is part of an entire process: his pieces are retrieved in order to be re-interpreted by other artists, in texts, musical scores, live performances, which produces new and dynamic objects which are hard to classify.  Saâdane Afif thus maintains a great freedom in his method, swinging between a formal levity and a subtlety with underlying issues.  He asks that the spectator think about the space he occupies in relationship to the artwork and its status.

Saâdane Afif was born in Vendome in 1970.  He studied at Bourges School of Fine Arts before completing his post graduate course in Nîmes. 
His work has been exhibited in places as varied and prestigious as the Palais de Tokyo in 2005 (Paris), the XIIth Kassel Documenta in 2007, with his latest exhibition being held at the Pompidou Centre at the end of 2010.  Parallel to this, Saâdane Afif led a nomadic existence, residing in Marseilles, then Nice (Villa Arson) and Glasgow (Villa Medicis Hors les Murs), before choosing Berlin where he has lived since 2003.  He was awarded the international Prize for contemporary art by the Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation, and received the Marcel Duchamp Prize in October 2009; his reward was an exhibition at the French Pavilion at Shanghai’s universal exhibition in 2010.