Artists
Kader Attia
In the video diptych Open Your Eyes, Kader Attia organizes images by appropriating the basic functions of the Western art museum—collection, conservation, education—and a methodology typically used in teaching art history: the slide show. The images that he presents are divided into two bodies of work. The first one shows repaired objects, which he has photographed in museum storage spaces; in the other are exhibited portraits of wounded First World War soldiers drawn from the archives of various army museums. This dynamic juxtaposition allows Attia, among other things, to examine the complex relationships between West and East. He explores the “restoration” of the human body by comparing it to the concept of repair in “extra-occidental,” or non-Western, cultures.
Exhibited work(s):
Open Your Eyes (2010)
- Born
- 1970, Dugny, France
- Countries / Nations
- Algeria / France
- Lives
- Berlin, Germany / Algiers, Algeria
- Website
- kaderattia.de
Works

Kader Attia
Open Your Eyes
2010
Projection à double canaux, noir et blanc et couleur, sans son, 9 min 18 s
Avec l’aimable autorisation de Kader Attia et de Lehmann Maupin (New York, Hong Kong, Séoul)
© Kader Attia / SOCAN (2019) / Musée du Service des armées (Paris) / Martin Monestier / Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren)

Kader Attia
Open Your Eyes
2010
Double-channel projection, black and white and colour, no sound, 9 min 18 s
Installation view, Tate Modern, London, 2011
Courtesy of Kader Attia and Lehmann Maupin (New York, Hong Kong, Seoul)
© Kader Attia / SOCAN (2019) / Musée du Service des armées (Paris) / Martin Monestier / Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren)