Kader Attia: J'Accuse

Kader Attia grew up in France and Algeria. He rose to international fame not least with his contributions to the Biennale di Venezia and Documnta. In 2022 he curated the 12th Berlin Biennale.

Kader Attia, J'accuse, 2016, Ausstellungsansicht Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, 2016 – Foto: Installation aus hölzernen Skulpturen, die auf Sockeln aus geriffelten Metallstangen stehen.

At the Berlinische Galerie he is showing two installations – “J’accuse” (2016) and “The Object’s Interlacing” (2020). “J’accuse” includes an extract from Abel Gance’s anti-war film of that name made in 1938 and 18 busts of “gueules cassées”, French servicemen whose faces were badly disfigured in the First World War. Here Attia continues to explore his concept of “repair”, which has been at the centre of his art for many years. In “The Object’s Interlacing” (2020) Attia talks to a range of experts about returning cultural assets stolen during the colonial era. Without attributing blame, he draws on different contemporary perspectives – philosophical, legal, anthropological, psychoanalytical, museological and financial – to construct an understanding of restitution as a practice of repair with far broader implications than simply the repatriation of objects looted from their place of origin.

These two pieces by Attia are complemented by selected collages made by Hannah Höch for her iconic series “From an Ethnographic Museum” (1924-1934).

Runtime: Sat, 27/04/2024 to Mon, 19/08/2024

Takes place here:

• Berlinische Galerie