Saâdane Afif

Saâdane Afif (* 1970 in Vendôme, Département Loir-et-Cher) is a French conceptual artist.

Life and career

Saâdane Afif studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Bourges until 1995 and later at the École des Beaux Arts in Nantes until 1998. Afif has had many major exhibitions, including at the Museum Folkwang in Essen (2004), at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2005), at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2010) and the Museum für moderne Kunst in Frankfurt (2012). He was invited to the Documenta 12 magazines in Kassel (2007). In 2009 Afif was distinguished with the Marcel Duchamp Prize followed by the award of the “Günther-Peill-Stiftung” in 2012. Saâdane Afif lives and works in Berlin.[1]

Art works

Defined as ‘post-conceptual’, Saâdane Afif’s work focuses on interpretation, exchange and circulation. It takes multiple forms (performance, objects, sculptures, text, posters and works in neon) with the exhibition as a pretext for production or activation. [2] Saâdane Afif’s complex procedure is not typically assigned to any discipline. All of his works are subject to a continual process of alteration. He integrates elements of art history, music, poetry and dance. Sometimes he invites writers to write texts on existing or found works of fine art which other artists then set to music or deploy in drama. Afif himself refuses to appear in public, preferring to direct from afar.[3]

In 2008 Afif began a work titled "The Fountain Archives". At present the Fountain Archive contains about 500 images of Duchamp’s porcelain urinal. In this work, Afif collects and archives every single publication in which he finds a reproduction of Duchamp's urinal.[4] Every page, containing the picture of the Fountain, is torn out and then carefully framed. The frame, used for its preservation and highlight ornament purposes, is also part of the making process. Every step of the archiving follows meticulous rules which participate entirely in the making process of these works of art.[3] Each new archived fountain has its own inventory card, which stands for a certificate of authenticity. Since 2013, some publication presenting this project by Afif, happened to reproduce the work “Fountain” of Duchamp. Those specific documents are also incorporated in the Fountain Archives project. But they are treated as special objects as they are doubled in order to testify of a historical echo, mark a mise en abyme. In case of the mise en abyme – a publication includes an image of Afif's The Fountain Archive project – there is also one exception to the strict rule that each book produced only a unique, singular work of the Fountain Archive. Therefore two copies of the book enter the archive and two editions of the work are made.[5]

In April 2012, an exhibition took place at the Museum_für_Moderne_Kunst in Frankfurt. The MMK Zollamt was an external exhibition of the main exhibition space which presented Saâdane Afif's l “Anthologie de l’humour noir” which shows some aspects of African influences in an new and unusual light as it was also linked with modern French art and literature. The centerpiece was a coffin made in Ghana which plays as an ode to the deceased. The shape of the coffin is a reference to the Centre Pompidou and it was titled Humour Noir which is a word play on black humour. This was a phrase that was made famous by André Breton.

Exhibitions

Awards and grants

Bibliography

External links

References

  1. ↑ Biography Saâdane Afif, Gallery Mehdi Chouakri, http://www.mehdi-chouakri.com/kuenstler/safif/Biographie_SA.pdf
  2. ↑
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Valentina Vlasic: Saâdane Afif, in: The Present Order is the Disorder of the Future, Schriftenreihe Museum Kurhaus Kleve – Ewald Mataré-Sammlung Nr. 62, Freundeskreis Museum Kurhaus und Koekkoek-Haus Kleve e.V. (Hrsg), 2013, p. 57.
  4. ↑ René Zechlin: Toutes Directions – Le Prix Marcel Duchamp, published by Astrid Ihle and René Zechlin, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, in Silvana Editoriale Verlag, p. 17.
  5. ↑ Elena Filipovic, Xavier Hufkens: Sâadane Afif. Fontaines. Triangle Books, 2014, ISBN 978-2-930777-05-4, p. 21.