Join Ellen Blumenstein, curator at HafenCity Hamburg, for a discussion of the artistic practice of Kader Attia, whose 2015 installation Reason's Oxymorons is on view in Garen Gallery.

The lecture takes its title from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s iconic early 19th-century collection of lyrical poems, which symbolically stimulated a dialogue not only between Germany and the Middle East but also between Latin and Persian as well as Christian and Muslim cultures. Ellen Blumenstein follows the artistic practice of Paris-born, Berlin-based artist of Algerian descent Kader Attia and his attempt at reconciling the disparate cultural contexts in which he grew up.

With ever-new artistic strategies and in ever-changing genres, Attia’s oeuvre continues to bring together seemingly unconnected topics and locations, creating an idiosyncratic archive of his long-term research on the concept of repair. Culminating in an investigation of Attia’s major installation Reason’s Oxymorons, Blumenstein’s lecture takes the audience on a journey through time and space that situates the most important works of Attia's long career on a visual mind-map.   

Free and open to the public.

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