Bani Abidi
Proposal For A Man in the Sea

Artist
Bani Abidi

Title
Proposal For A Man in the Sea

Year of creation
2012/2023

Technology and dimensions
installation, 19 photographs, found and newly produced frames, approx. 200 x 400 x 50 cm

Year of acquisition
2023

Acquisition of the foundation

With the extensive exhibition “They Died Laughing” in 2019, the Gropiusbau honored the work of the artist Bani Abidi (*1971), who was born in Pakistan and has been commuting between Karachi and Berlin for years. In her films and photographs she talks about the cities in which she has lived, focusing in particular on the absurd imagery and rhetoric of dominance and power. She stages stories in which historical conflicts and geopolitical relationships between neighboring nations such as India and Pakistan are linked to individual experiences. During her research for the film Death at a 30 Degree Angle, presented at Documenta 13 in 2012, about a self-absorbed politician who commissions a monumental sculpture, the artist came across the work of the over 80-year-old sculptor Ram Sutar, who has been... He created monumental statues of political leaders for decades. The photographs, installed in two rows one above the other, show documents and models of the monumental sculptures in the studio of the aged sculptor, whose productions of fame and honor have passed over time.

Gabriele Knapstein, Deputy Director Hamburger Bahnhof – National Gallery of the Present