Latifa Echakhch's joyful paintings will get you in the mood to party
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Loading... - Sauvo Hiltunen
- 28 Jul 2022
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The Moroccan-Swiss artist discusses her new show at London’s Pace Gallery, and the importance of savouring time spent with your friends.
Over the past two decades, Moroccan-born contemporary artist Latifa Echakhch has established herself as a leading creative mind in her home country.
“I’m a happy person,” she exclaims, ​“but when I make work, I find I’m creating beautiful things and then destroying them! I’m always asking: what’s my problem?”
Having spent the last 15 years creating installations and fine art that challenges society’s many prejudices and contradictions, now Echakhch is gearing up to travel to Venice for this year’s Biennale exhibition where she will represent Switzerland with an immersive experience entitled The Concert.
As we connect via Zoom, the 47-year-old is walking through her vast studio, a repurposed ballroom in the lakeside Swiss town of Vevey, complete with modular moving walls and a large, ornate skylight. It seems fitting, then, that her new series of paintings titled Night Time, currently on display at London’s Pace Gallery, was conceived in a space once devoted to revelry, lively dancing and a buzzing community.
As we connect via Zoom, the 47-year-old is walking through her vast studio, a repurposed ballroom in the lakeside Swiss town of Vevey, complete with modular moving walls and a large, ornate skylight. It seems fitting, then, that her new series of paintings titled Night Time, currently on display at London’s Pace Gallery, was conceived in a space once devoted to revelry, lively dancing and a buzzing community.
Echakhch has dedicated much of her practice to locating moments of contrast, duality and contradiction in everyday life. She is animated when talking about her attempts to expand these moments into ambitious – often immersive – artworks, and her bid to achieve a sense of harmony ​“between sadness and joy, violence and beauty”. Read More...
