Let the drums beat!
4 June - 20 July
Goodman Gallery New York
Zineb Sedira | Let the drums beat!
Zineb Sedira
Head-Image
Goodman Gallery is pleased to present Let the drums beat!, a solo presentation by Zineb Sedira.
This marks the US debut of the British Franco-Algerian artist’s For A Brief Moment the Whole World Was on Fire...and We Have Come Back - a series of colorful photomontages seen in Sedira’s 2019 mid-career survey at Jeu De Paume, Paris. The presentation is also Sedira’s first in our New York office.
Following her critically acclaimed solo at Whitechapel Gallery earlier this year, Let the drums beat! presents new and existing work in which Sedira expands on her exploration of cinema as a tool for joyful resistance and draws on the archive as a device to expose, reconsider and challenge history.
Zineb Sedira
Dreams Have No Titles, 2022
Color Video 23’ 49’’, 16mm and digital film,
Looped projection
Edition of 5 + 3 AP
Film Stills
Zineb Sedira
Dreams Have No Titles [The Battle of Algiers], 2022
Collage from analogue photographs
Work: 90 x 160 cm (35.4 x 63 in.)
Edition of 3 + 2 AP
Two new lightboxes- Let the drums beat! (2023) and An awakening to the dream of thoughts (2023) - are presented alongside, in which Sedira highlights sentences sourced from so-called “third world” militant texts to transform them into militant slogans. Sedira illuminates these captions in works which make reference to iconic Hollywood billboard signs, with each collated quote further spotlit in lights by surrounding individual bulbs.
Zineb Sedira
Let the drums beat!, 2023
Lightbox with light bulbs
Work: 61 x 80 x 14.5 cm (24 x 31.5 x 5.7 in.)
Edition of 3 + 1 AP
Zineb Sedira
An awakening to the dream of thoughts, 2023
Lightbox with light bulbs
Work: 57 x 110 x 14.5 cm (22.4 x 43.3 x 5.7 in.)
Edition of 3 + 1 AP
This presentation is on the heels of the US debut of her ground-breaking project and film Dreams Have No Titles at The Museum of Contemporary Art in LA. The film was originally conceived for the French Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022.
Zineb Sedira
Film Canisters II, 2021
Resin sculpture with pedestal
Work: 154 x 79 cm (60.6 x 31.1 in.)
Unique
Born in France to Algerian parents, before relocating to London in the mid 1980s, Sedira’s practice has been significantly shaped by her personal experience and multi-hyphenated identity. At the center of her thematic explorations are location, materials and migration, utilizing the archive as a primary tool with which to reveal ongoing struggles and to interrogate readily accepted narratives.
A selection from the eight photomontages that make up For A Brief Moment the Whole World Was on Fire...and We Have Come Back (2019) will be on view. This series features archival media incorporating; printed ephemera, vinyl records and memorabilia highlights the Pan-African Festival and further encapsulates the inspiration of the Algerian nation at the spearhead of independence movements in Africa.
Zineb Sedira
For a Brief Moment the World Was on Fire... and We Have Come Back, 2019
8 photomontages on diasec, various objects, books, DVD and vinyl records, and a painted yellow wall
Variable Dimensions
Edition of 2 + 1 AP
Zineb Sedira (b. 1963 Paris, France) utilizes the mediums of photography, film, video, object making, performance and installation. For over 25 years, her practice has addressed themes of history, migration and storytelling.
Her solo show at Whitechapel Gallery saw the UK debut of her ground-breaking project and film Dreams Have No Titles, originally conceived for the French Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022. Following Whitechapel, the work will tour to Cultural Foundation Abu Dhabi in October 2024.
Solo exhibitions: Whitechapel (London, 2024); Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin, 2023); Dundee Contemporary Arts (Dundee, 2023); De La Warr Pavilion (Bexhill-on-Sea, 2022); Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (Scottsdale, 2021); Jeu de Paume (Paris, 2019); Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (Valencia, 2019); Beirut Art Center (Lebanon, 2018) and Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2010).
Institutional group exhibitions: Kunsthausbaselland (Basel, 2022), The Photographers’ Gallery (London, 2021), Pompidou Centre (Paris, 2020), Yale Center for British Art (New Haven, 2019), Whitechapel Gallery (London, 2019), Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (Holland, 2018) and Tate Britain (London, 2013).
Biennials and triennials: the Gwangju Biennale (2023); Venice Biennale (2001, 2011, 2022); the Folkestone Triennial (2011); Sharjah Biennale (2003 and 2007); and the triennial for photography and video at the Institute of Contemporary Photography in New York (2003).
Collections include: Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Tate, London; Guggenheim, New York; Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt; Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow Museums; Mathaf – Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; MUMOK (Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig), Vienna, Austria; Wolverhampton Arts and Museums, Exeter, UK; the Victoria and Albert Museum; the Arts Council of England; and the FNAC (Fond National d’Art Contemporain), Paris.
Sedira’s film Dreams Have No Titles (2022) was awarded the Special Mention of the Jury at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022. In 2023, it was screened at the High Line in New York and at the Labia Theatre in Cape Town and went on display at TATE Britain in London as part of a rehang of the permanent collection. It will have its UK premiere at London’s Whitechapel Gallery in Spring 2024. The work will tour to the Cultural Foundation, Abu Dhabi, in Autumn 2024. Forthcoming is a significant solo exhibition at The Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon in February 2025.
