Let's go on singing!
Goodman Gallery London
8 February - 16 March 2024
Zineb Sedira | Let's go on singing!
Zineb Sedira
Head-Image
Let’s go on singing! marks the first solo exhibition with the gallery for British Franco-Algerian artist Zineb Sedira, as well as marking the artist’s first London show since her commended 2009 INIVA exhibition.
The exhibition coincides with Sedira’s highly anticipated solo at the Whitechapel Gallery where the artist will present 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 Gallery, the work will tour to Cultural Foundation Abu Dhabi in October 2024.
Let’s go on singing! 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
An Awakening to the Dream of Thoughts, 2023
Lightbox with light bulbs
Work: 61 x 100 x 14.5 cm (24 x 39.4 x 5.7 in.)
Edition of 3 + 1 AP
Zineb Sedira
The Genocide of Souls, 2023
Lightbox with light bulbs
Work: 51 x 61 x 14.5 cm (20.1 x 24 x 5.7 in.)
Edition of 3 + 1 AP
A new series of light boxes 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
“Identity is very much at the core of every artistic practice, whether painting flowers or exploring one’s culture or politics.”
Zineb Sedira
Zineb Sedira
Our songs will all be silenced, 2023
Lightbox with light bulbs
Work: 200 x 40 x 14.5 cm (78.7 x 15.7 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
Zineb Sedira
Headlines, 2024
Installation of 7 lightboxes
Work: 169 x 277 x 13.5 cm (66.5 x 109.1 x 5.3 in.)
Edition of 3 + 1 AP
A new installation Headlines (2023) continues the artist’s exploration of captions, sourced from 1969 Algerian newspapers. The seven lightboxes which compose this work highlight headlines which capture a way of speaking that was prevalent in the 1960s. The slogans exemplify the feeling of connection, brotherhood and sisterhood that support the alliances of this period.
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. Key areas of investigation in her practice centre around location, materials and migration; deploying the archive as a primary tool with which to expose persisting struggles of a fading past and to question readily accepted narratives.
Zineb Sedira
Mise-en-scene (scene 1) - Part of the installation Standing Here Wondering Which Way to Go (in four scenes)
Video projection made out of decaying found footage rushes
8.59 minutes
Edition of 5
Commissioned by Jeu de Paume, Paris, France; IVAM, Valencia, Spain; Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal; Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden.
In recent years, Sedira’s practice has focused on the concept of radical cinema, offering a British-Franco-Algerian perspective on resistance, migrant identity and African history. Included in the exhibition is the UK premiere of mise-en scène (2019), an eight-minute film in which the artist seeks to expose the relationship between cinema, collective memory and anticolonial activism in Algeria. The film is made up of spliced footage, directly referencing the experimental filmmaking and structural films of 1960s Algeria which staunchly opposed cinematic convention and explored non-narrative forms. At times, the footage suggests traces of time as a result of a deterioration in the film’s chemical composition, creating abstract, rhythmic patterns with granular textures.
For A Brief Moment the Whole World Was on Fire... and We Have Come Back (2019) also makes its UK debut, following its inclusion in the artist’s acclaimed 2019 mid-career survey at Jeu De Paume, Paris. A series of eight colourful photomontages featuring 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 fo 2 + 1 AP
Zineb Sedira (b. 1963 Paris, France) utilises 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.
Solo exhibitions: 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).
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.