In his works, Attia concerns himself with the concept of “repair”, which he has been exploring for many years. The artist distinguishes between two approaches to repair: the patched artefacts of ethnological collections openly show their seams and clamps and thus the history of the object. This ostentatious, traditional form of repair does not conceal but rather reveals the different stages of development inherent to the object, and thus the ideologies of the past and present.

The Western conception of repair, on the other hand, pursues an ideal of perfection by striving for the flawless re-creation of the original state. In the consumer society cycle, defective objects are disposed of and replaced by new ones. The repair itself remains invisible, amounting to an obliteration of history.

The artist applies these two concepts to widely differing fields of knowledge and technologies and denies them unilateral cultural classification by pointing out comparable phenomena in various cultural spheres. His interest is not with a reconciliation of cultural differences but with the keener perception of pluralities.

“In his artistic investigations he combines phenomena of different eras and cultures in a broad panorama that enables him to illuminate and interpret our present in a new way”, observes the exhibition curator Klaus Görner. “Within the framework of his ongoing examination of the notion of repair, he creates works that lend powerful pictorial expression and complex form to current conflicts.”