Exhibition view of the room installation for the annual exhibition 2024 - Class Kader Attia - Timebased media
The massive concrete gives the fragile sculptures strength and power. The shadows take up the space that has long been refused to them and the material irritation results from the special production in the casting process. At first view, the sculptures may appear to be pillows covered in leather, but on closer observation the fragile concrete edges appear, creating a desire to touch the ghostly forms, even though they are cool and inflexible.
In the words of the author Marquerite Yourceuar: for some time now I have been tempted to "step aside to let their shadows pass"
Darkness and shadows - reminding you of creatures that won't let you sleep in the dark night in the form of dreams and make you despair during the day.
Echoes of anger - echoes of rage. And the desire for revenge. It is the desire to move from powerlessness to the ability to act.
Vengeance has a deep emotional and social meaning, and the need for revenge is suppressed in modern times, although it continues to play an important role in human relationships.
In Revange - About Modernity‘s Blind Spot, by Fabian Bernhardt, he analyses revenge as a 'forgotten passion' and shows how this need is often ignored or dismissed as irrational and dangerous in Western society. Echoing the story of madness told by Michel Foucalt, the establishment of legal criminal justice in Western modernity gives rise to 'wild' and 'arbitrary' revenge, which from then on appears as the other side of the law. Bernhardt shows that revenge brings with it a desire for justice and reparation.
In popular cultural narratives, revenge often begins where the law can no longer provide justice. I clearly remember watching Ana Lily Amirpour's "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night" one evening and feeling the satisfaction of revenge with every brutal vampire bite. Fearful and ashamed of myself, the film spoke directly to my soul, finding the words and images I had been missing for so long. Revenge is an ambivalent but entirely human emotion that can restore agency and identity and need not be destructive. Revenge raises important questions about justice, judgement, morality and the limits of forgiveness.