Latifa Echakhch
b. 1974, Morocco
Sun Set Down, 2021
Acrylic paint and concrete, vinyl and fibre on canvas mounted on aluminium
200 x 150 x 2.5 cm
Sun Set Down is part of Latifa Echakhch’s ongoing series under the same name, as well as an extension of her site-specific installation Cross Fade (2020). Reminiscent of classical representations of the sky in Renaissance frescoes, Echakhch paints a sunset over a layer of concrete, only to vigorously scrape against the concrete such that chunks of the artwork disappear, along with the artist’s painterly gesture. These chunks can only be completed with the viewer’s imagination, and so their assumptions follow: has something been lost? Or has it developed? Echakhch thus offers viewers multiple pathways in continuing the artwork with their mind’s eye, such that one could see the work’s destruction to the end, or restore it to completion. Juxtaposing the violence of deconstruction against the romantic harmony of the painting’s form, Echakhch spotlights the tensions existing between exaltation and menace, while also giving a more sensual perspective to conceptual art.
Photo: Pace Gallery
Latifa Echakhch (b. 1974) is a Moroccan-French artist currently based in Swiss cities Martigny and Vevey. Drawing inspiration from her own identity and experiences, Echakhch seeks to question established ideas about nationality, religion, and history with a simultaneously cerebral and sensual approach to painting, sculpture, and large-scale installations. By taking familiar objects through processes of destruction, deletion, or restoration, Echakhch liberates them of their initial roles and functions, the act of which toes the line along various dichotomies lying within politics and conceptual art. Having studied at the École nationale supérieure d'arts de Paris-Cergy and the Lyon National School of Fine Arts, Echakhch is the recipient of the Marcel Duchamp Prize (2013) and participated in the Venice Biennale in 2011 and 2022. The artist also presented solo exhibitions in France and beyond, such as Kunsthaus in Zurich (2012), the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2013), Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2015), and the Tate Modern, London (2008).
