Iris Tingitana Oxalis

2007 - Photography (Photography)

125 x 125 cm

Yto Barrada

location: Tangier, Morocco
year born: 1971
gender: male
nationality: French-Moroccan
home town: Paris, France

This photograph is part of the series titled “Iris Tingitana project” (2007) focusing on the disappearance of the iris. If Yto Barrada was initially interested in the architectural heritage of the city, today the core of her research focuses on risks around landscape and its heritage. The iris, found bordering the city, carries the name of the city, and is an emblem of Tangier. This flower grows in the most improbable and resistant situations such as vacant land and construction sites. Now on roadsides, next to iris flowers grow geraniums, like in standardized European resorts. This photograph depicts a child proudly sporting a crown made of iris flowers in a deprived area. In traditional iconography, and especially in Catholic traditions, the iris, like the lily, is a royal symbol. This child reminds us of portraits from seventeenth century Dutch painting, in which flowers symbolize vanity. Despite the intense and interrogative look of the boy, one cannot help but think of the boy in a symbolized garden of Eden – a paradise lost.


Yto Barrada is an artist of Morrocan origin who has worked for many years in Tangier, a urbanized border town influenced by the West. Her work is articulated around Tangier’s territory and raises questions on the city’s rapid infrastructural changes associated with economical development and real-estate speculation. Tangier, in a sense, is at the point of becoming a Moroccan Costa del Sol. “Le project du détroit,” a work that has granted her international visibility, consists of videos and series of photographs, in attempt to describe a city of transit and in transition. For a considerable amount of time, Tangier was the gate to Europe that Schengen closed in 1991. A meeting point between Europe and Africa, the strait of Gibraltar became a “larger Morrocan cemetary” that refugees and asylum seekers used to cross from Tangier. Her work reminds one of documentary reporting, yet with a poetic vision, far from exoticism and spectacle. In her work, the city’s inhabitants, or their traces, find themselves at the heart of her images. Yto Barrada was born in Tangier in 1971. She lives and works between Tangier and Paris.


Colors:



Clouds paintings
© » KADIST

Benoît Maire

The series Clouds paintings by Benoît Maire features oil on canvas works in varying format, in which the artist depicts clouds, using a variety of tools, including a spray gun, paintbrush, or palette knife...

Stalactites (Few More Mistakes). Round Bar of Wood (Portrait of Gilbert & George)
© » KADIST

Saâdane Afif

2005

In this work, Saâdane Afif quotes André Cadere’s round wooden batons using the copy share and remix principles...

Le réel est l'impasse de la formalisation ; la formalisation est le lieu de passe-en-force du réel
© » KADIST

Benoît Maire

2006

The piece consists of sculpture of 10 elements, among them: a globe, a picture of a gorilla, a chair, scrabble letters, 3 glasses of black ink, a book whose title is illuminated by the beam of a 8mm projector, a pair of boots, etc...

Talking Head
© » KADIST

Michel Auder

1981

Talking Head is a short film in black and white of Auder’s daughter Alexandra, hidden behind a hemp plant, playing with a plastic wrapper and babbling in an imaginative way...

Related works featuring themes of: » City Scenes, » Color Photography, » Conflict, » Documentary Photography, » French-Moroccan  
» see more

Fedex® 10kg Box 2006 FedEx 149801 REV 9/06 MP, Standard Overnight, Los Angeles-San Francisco, trk#800983717740, December 18-19, 2012, International Priority, San Francisco-Beijing, trk# 775046700145, October 27-November 5, 2021
© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2012

Constructed out of metal or glass to mirror the size of FedEx shipping boxes, and to fit securely inside, Walead Beshty’s FedEx works are then shipped, accruing cracks, chips, scrapes, and bruises along the way to their destination...

Karachi Series 1 (Chandra Acarya, 7:50pm, 30 August 2008, Ramadan, Karachi)
© » KADIST

Bani Abidi

2008

The threshold in contemporary Pakistan between the security of private life and the increasingly violent and unpredictable public sphere is represented in Abidi’s 2009 series Karachi ...

100 Hand drawn maps of my country, Tel Aviv / Jerusalem
© » KADIST

Shilpa Gupta

2014

These hand drawn maps are part of an ongoing series begun in 2008 in which Gupta asks ordinary people to sketch outlines of their home countries by memory...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

Bus Logos
© » KADIST

Yto Barrada

2004

In this photographic series, Yto Barrada was interested in the logos of the buses that travel between North Africa and Europe...

Fedex® 10kg Box 2006 FedEx 149801 REV 9/06 MP, Standard Overnight, Los Angeles-San Francisco, trk#800983717740, December 18-19, 2012, International Priority, San Francisco-Beijing, trk# 775046700145, October 27-November 5, 2021
© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2012

Constructed out of metal or glass to mirror the size of FedEx shipping boxes, and to fit securely inside, Walead Beshty’s FedEx works are then shipped, accruing cracks, chips, scrapes, and bruises along the way to their destination...

Alistair Fate
© » KADIST

Catherine Opie

1994

Alistair Fate (1994) depicts, presumably, a member of the LGBT community...

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

Muster (Rushes, 2011-2012) by Clemens Von Wedemeyer
© » KADIST

A private preview of a new film produced for dOCUMENTA (13), followed by a conversation with political philosopher Florian Grosser...

Abraham Cruzvillegas Part 3
© » KADIST

This interview with Abraham Cruzvillegas takes place in Mexico City, D...

ArtsEquator Turns Two!
© » ARTS EQUATOR

ArtsEquator Turns Two! | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints November 15, 2018 ArtsEquator is two years old today! 🎉 Aside from our original reviews, essays, podcasts and visual essays, we’ve also organised programmes to strengthen performance criticism and critical discourse...

Christopher Bales Brings Sculptures to La Luz de Jesus
© » HIGH FRUCTOSE

The mixed-media assemblages of Christopher Bales come to La Luz de Jesus Gallery for a new show next month...

Other works by: » Yto Barrada  
» see more

Bus Logos
© » KADIST

Yto Barrada

2004

In this photographic series, Yto Barrada was interested in the logos of the buses that travel between North Africa and Europe...

Related artist(s) to: Yto Barrada » Okwui Enwezor, » Hou Hanru, » Udo Kittelmann, » Deutsche Bank, » Roman Ondák, » Wangechi Mutu, » Etel Adnan, » Imran Qureshi, » Meschac Gaba, » Victor Man  
» see more

Hubert Maga (perruque MAVA-musée d'art de la vie active)
© » KADIST

Meschac Gaba

2010

The headdresses, woven from artificial hair braids, symbolize historical icons including Martin Luther King, Kwame Nkrumah, Fela Kuti and King Guézo of Dahomey...

This Day
© » KADIST

Imran Qureshi

2017

At first glance, This Day by Imran Qureshi appears to be an energetic, gestural painting reminiscent of Action Painting from the mid-20th century...

You who are my love and my life’s enemy too
© » KADIST

Imran Qureshi

2011

There was a tragedy in Sialkot, Punjab, in August 2010, when two adolescents were murdered by vigilantes who were apparently in connivance with the police...

Untitled (Beirut)
© » KADIST

Etel Adnan

2010

Adnan’s paintings are simple images with bold contrasting colors and rich textures...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

A Major Retrospective Celebrates Iris van Herpen’s Mesmerizing Designs at the Intersection of Art, Fashion, and Science
© » COLOSSAL

Water, skeletons, and the origins of life usher in a major retrospective of the exquisite, otherworldly garments of Iris van Herpen ( previously )...

Gilded Lilies
© » LENS CULTURE

Gilded Lilies - Photographs by Tine Poppe | Interview by Sophie Wright | LensCulture Feature Gilded Lilies Norwegian photographer Tine Poppe’s portraits of cut flowers, shot against landscapes ravaged by climate change, propose a new take on the still life—one fit for the uncertain times we are living in...

Colorful Balloons
© » KADIST

Zhu Jia

2015

In this four-channel 10 min video installation different episodes play simultaneously on the four screens...

Dead Zone (4)
© » KADIST

Aria Dean

2019

Although typically sold today as a novelty item for flower arrangements and interior decorating flourishes, cotton can also be seen as a proxy, through synecdoche, for US slavery...