Yto BarradaUntitled (felt circus flooring, Tangier), 2013-2015
"This is idle, clumsy advice I'm giving you. Nobody could follow it. But I wanted just that: to write about this art [tightrope walking] a poem whose heat would flush your cheeks. The idea was not to incrust you, but to inflame you." - Jean Genet
Before his death in Larache in 1986, the French playwright Jean Genet taught his lover to reproduce his signature, so that after his death the younger man could sell his documents and manuscripts successfully. Genet's lover, Abdallah Bentaga, was a Moroccan tightrope walker. In the end, he died before Genet, a suicide.
The patched and repaired layers of circus flooring reflects on both the story of Jean Genet's lover and on Barrada's recurring themes of repair and assemblage.
Exhibitions:
The Powerplant, Toronto, 2017.
M Museum, Leuven, 2017.
Serralves Foundation, Porto, 2015.
Carré d’Art, Nîmes, 2015.
Literature:
Yto Barrada, A Guide to Fossils for Forgers and Foreigners, 2016.
