Repair, Reappropriation, and the Myth of Perfection: The Work of Kader Attia

Kader Attia is a French born artist and grew up in both Paris and Algeria. Moving between these two countries for the first 12 years of his life led him towards the concept of repair due to the history of both places being prominent trading nations. Attia spent many years of his career studying and living all over Africa which has developed his views on the notion of repair. The influence of African culture is prevalent throughout his oeuvre as he uses restored sculptural masks and statues from Africa in his works. The artist presents different practices of repair which I have defined into 3 subsections: functional, aesthetic and spiritual repair. In all of Attia’s repair works he poses the question: Why, in Western culture, does something become worthless when it is restored? In his writings Attia often refers to the ‘myth of perfection’ created by Occident culture, this is the suggestion that there is a certain aesthetic that is the best and the most attractive to everyone therefore resulting in the disregardance of the restored works that Attia chooses to display. The theory that there is a formula to make something beautiful is parochial and this ‘myth’ is present not only in the art world but also in everyday life as people face unrealistic beauty standards created by the media. Within African culture restoration and repair is customary and therefore, Attia chooses to present the beauty of their repairs and the story that the object tells. Attia describes the repair practice as ‘reappropriation’ which directly means to use something in a new or different way. This theme within his work prevails as he presents the way in which his studies in the east have shown the reappropriation of objects in so many different ways.

Kader Attia’s untitled work of a restored ceramic plate in 2017 is a display of functional repairs meaning that this object has been repaired in order to function (fig. 1). The intricately decorated plate has been fixed using wire, which almost appears to have been sewn, that holds the plate together and is evocative of medical stitches on a human. Attia humanises the plate in order to create an emotional response from its audience, through bringing life to the object Attia forces the audience to be thankful that the plate has been repaired therefore, highlighting the importance of restoration art. This concept coincides with his ideas of repair allowing for the continuation of life as the plate is now functional once again. The underlying theme throughout his work is his oriental influence which is shown in this work as Attia references traditional forms of repair such as Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending pottery with gold or silver. The use of wire to mend the object is indicative of this traditional method. I find this method prevalent in his untitled 2016 sculpture of a wooden Boccio Totem where he has used melted tin to fill in the gaps and grooves of the wood (fig. 2). His references to oriental cultures throughout his work are off the back of his time living and working in Africa. In his interviews and articles, Attia talks about the culture of repair in these areas and how prevalent it was. In one article he describes how a trade between Portuguese sailors and the Congolese was not as “unequal” as it was made out to be. The Portuguese gave the native people bits of broken glass and mirrors discarding it as rubbish meanwhile, the Congolese people gave this ‘rubbish’ a new found meaning and value by using them to repair sculptures and artworks. The broken objects disregarded by the Portuguese became “precious social objects” of the Congo as they were used in rituals and often used as eyes on ritualistic sculptures. This meant that not only were the lives of the statues completed but also the lives of the disregarded objects given to them. The artist himself is simply bringing this concept to the western world by presenting not only the functionality of repair but also the beauty.