La courte échelle (Räuberleiter)

YTO BARAADA LA COURTE ÉCHELLE (RÄUBERLEITER)

September 5^th  –  Oktober 26^th  2013

HAMBURG - Sfeir-Semler Gallery is happy to announce the opening of its new, extended gallery space on Thursday, September 5th, from 6-9 pm. Our ground floor location has remained the same but we have expanded onto the first floor and are excited to start a new exhibition program, beginning with YTO BARRADA’s La courte échelle (Räuberleiter) and the launch and signing of the new monograph book on the artist, published by JRP-Ringier. 
  
Born in Paris in 1971, Moroccan-French artist Yto Barrada’s work interrogates the socio-political fabric of life in Morocco, and the complex dynamics of geographical, historical and symbolic territory in her hometown of Tangier.

The exhibition La courte échelle (Räuberleiter) assembles a selection of Barrada’s sculptures, videos, photographss and prints and particularly focuses on the notions of play and family, fluctuating between the public and private. The film Hand Me Downs (2011) uses archived amateur films from the 1950s and 1970s, investigating through voiceover 16 myths from her family’s unreliable narrators. The colors of Barrada’s C-prints deepen the experience and richness of the photos taken in the city, which converse with intimate family images. The motel-sign-style palms trees of Twin Palm Island, mounted on children’s wagons, engage the urban/nature divide, presenting trees transformed from environmental staple to commodified toy. 

It becomes apparent that these more personal avenues reflect larger themes of memory and the post-colonial condition which guide Barrada’s practice and personal projects. She is also the founding director of the Cinémathèque de Tanger, North Africa's first cinema cultural center, and a member of the Arab Image Foundation, Beirut.

Her work has been exhibited by institutions including MoMA, the Jeu de Paume, the Venice Biennale (2007, 2011). In 2011 she was named the Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year, and her show RIFFS began at the Guggenheim in Berlin, and toured to Wiels in Brussels, Fotomuseum Winterhur in Zurich, Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, and MACRO in Rome.  Upcoming exhibits include the Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis and the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal.

A reference monography will be launched and signed.

Yto Barrada, JRP|Ringier 2013

The exhibition runs from September 5^th  until October 26^th  2013.

For more information, please contact galerie@sfeir-semler.com