Collection

Kader Attia’s works uniquely introduce reflection on other cultures, understanding of other narratives about modernity seen through the prism of contemporary art. Attia was born in 1970 to an Algerian family living in Paris. He studied philosophy and art and travelled extensively between Europe and Africa. His first exhibition took place in the Congo, then he took part in a number of art biennales, including Venice, Sydney and Havana. He took part in Documenta 13 in Kassel, where his installation "Occident to Extra-Occidental Cultures" was one of the key elements of the exhibition at the Fridericianum museum. His art reflects on a post-colonial legacy, significant for the discussion on the links between visual culture and contemporary global politics. Attija's works touch upon the assimilation of Islamic minorities in Europe and the history of French colonial policy. The sculptures of the series “Culture, Another Nature Repaired” are connected with the concept of “reappropriation” and the influence that vernacular architecture, military technology and plastic surgery have had on modernism. These sculptures are a result of the artist’s creative cooperation with traditional craftsmen of Bamako, Mali. The inspiration for their creation were photographs of the so-called les gueules cassées, soldiers mutilated during the First World War. They become totems, African deities recalling the dark colonial chapters of European history. Kader Atti’s sculptures from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw combine the Malian sculptural tradition of figurative representation and the experimental method of the sculpture production, a combination of different narratives, seemingly distant in terms of history and geographic location.