Simultaneously exploring cultural facts, natural processes and historical stories, Yto BARRADA’s work pays particular attention to the transmission of local know-how, the circulation of aesthetic forms and strategies of social disobedience. Highlighting the idea of community, artistic kinship and collaboration with friends and family, they often include a rereading of modernist artistic avant-gardes.
Yto BARRADA co-founded the Cinémathèque de Tanger in 2006. She also created The Mothership [le vaisseau-mère]a research and residency center around a garden of dye plants that she has been cultivating for ten years. The Mothership is a gathering place for artists, gardeners and thinkers which boasts a feminist, ecological and playful approach to the creation and transmission of knowledge.
Yto BARRADA’s work has been the subject of monographic exhibitions at the Jeu de Paume, Paris (2006); at the Renaissance Society, Chicago (2011); at Tate Modern, London (2011); at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, (2013); at Carré d’Art, Nîmes (2015); at the Barbican Centre, London (2018); at MASS MoCA North Adams, Massachusetts (2021); at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2021); at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2022); at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany (2023); at Césure – Urban Plateau as part of the Autumn Festival (2023); at MoMA PS1, New York (2024), among others. She has also participated in numerous biennials, including those of Venice (2007, 2011), Sharjah (2011), Istanbul (2013), Marrakech (2016), Gwangju (2018) and Whitney (2022).
Yto BARRADA’s works are part of public collections around the world, notably those of the Center Pompidou (Paris), the MoMA (New York), the Tate Modern (London), the Kunsthalle Basel, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Reina Sofia (Madrid), Mathaf (Doha) and Mumok (Vienna), among others.
Among her distinctions, the artist was named Artist of the Year by the Deutsche Guggenheim in 2011. She also benefited from the Peabody Museum (Harvard University) research grant in 2013-2014, from the Soros Arts Fellowship in 2023 and received numerous awards, including the Abraaj Group Art Prize in 2015, the Roy R. Neuberger Prize in 2019, the Mario Merz Prize and the Queen Sonja Print Award in 2022.
She is represented by Polaris Gallery (Paris), Sfeir-Semler Gallery (Beirut, Hamburg) and Pace Gallery (New York, London, Seoul, Hong Kong, Geneva, Los Angeles, Tokyo).
