Healing and spirituality intersect in Kader Attia’s 'Descent into Paradise’

The Montpellier Contemporain (MO. CO.), France recently presented Descent into Paradise, Kader Attia, a solo show of work by the celebrated Algerian-French artist. The exhibition was held from June 22 - September 22, 2024. Descent into Paradise presented existing and new works, including an immersive installation that incorporated Attia’s film Pluvialité (2023), shot in northern Thailand, and a rainstalk installation created specifically for MO. CO. The exhibition presented the recurring motif of a journey from sky to earth and was curated by Numa Hambursin, the Chief Executive Officer of MO. CO. – he joined STIR for an interview that shed light on the sense of poetry in Attia’s multidisciplinary art practice and the connection between verticality and spirituality in Descent into Paradise.

Attia’s work suggests that there is a pathway beyond the trauma and scars of history—one that allows for recovery… – Numa Hambursin, curator

Hambursin views poetry as a slowed-down, meditative state. He tells STIR, “... in a world where ugliness and efficiency are elevated to the status of cardinal values, poetry, which is the expression of slowed time, is in itself a form of resistance.” The curator asserts that Attia’s work is too often considered from a political, sociological or philosophical position, without taking into account the form of the artist’s artworks. Every work in the art exhibition held a sensual quality that brought it closer to nature—and to the materials Attia worked with—moving away from sleek, modern perfection. For example, Pluvialité’s rainstalk installation and visuals from lush northern Thailand suggest the feeling of escaping the disorienting speed of contemporary society.

Hambursin believes that Attia’s art links verticality to spirituality by “using forms and structures that invoke ascension, elevation, or a connection between the earthly and the divine”. Intifada: The Endless Rhizomes of Revolution (2016) is an example of this, in keeping with a passage from the curatorial note: “Like the rain that ravages and transforms, is there not an ascension at play in a downward flow? Attia’s sculptural art evokes images of trees growing from the earth and reaching towards the sky in the wake of a heavy downpour. The artwork has been installed with rubble distributed at the base of the ‘trees’, which suggests that they spring from the floor of the exhibition space in MO. CO.

Hambursin explains that spirituality is presented in the exhibition to “escape the grip of History”, as the curatorial note puts it, through the transformation of collective generational trauma into artmaking. Perhaps Attia’s Mirrors and Masks (2023) series could be read from such a lens, as these are created using ceremonial African masks, which Attia has studded with mirror shards to resemble the disfigured faces of African soldiers who fought for colonial powers in the First World War. In Hambursin’s words, “Attia’s work suggests that there is a pathway beyond the trauma and scars of history - one that allows for recovery, reflection, and a reconnection to cultural identity free from historical constraints. This spiritual escape is not a denial of history, but rather an alternative way of engaging with it; one that seeks to overcome its burdens.”

Beyond healing through spirituality, the Mediterranean artist seems focused on broader notions of repair. This can be evidenced through the large-scale installation On Silence (2021), which is made up of several prosthetic limbs, meant to be treated as healing tools for those maimed as a result of global conflict. In its entirety, Descent into Paradise explored a complex and layered practice that sprang from an earnest sense of concern for the well-being of humanity.

‘Descent into Paradise, Kader Attia’ ran at the Montpellier Contemporain (MO. CO.) from June 22 - September 22, 2024.