Page 75 - ART GIANTS issue of World of Art (WOA) Contemporary Art Magazine

The modular concrete blocks, balanced atop one another,
WORLD-CLASS ART YTO BARRADA: after the country’s independence in 1956. The installation’s
also recall the Moroccan Brutalist movement that emerged

color palette is informed by the CIAM Grid, a framework for
LE GRAND SOIR
analyzing urban spaces, incorporating green (housing), red
(labor), yellow (leisure), and blue (mobility).

anarcho-syndicalist expression, symbolizing the possibility
MoMA PS1 presents Le Grand Soir, a large-scale outdoor The title, Le Grand Soir (The Big Night), references a French
installation by Yto Barrada (Moroccan-French, b. 1971), of revolution and change. Barrada also connects the work to
transforming the museum’s courtyard into an interactive, her personal history, her father, a political activist and head
sculptural environment. Running for two years, this of the Moroccan student union, was condemned to death
commission continues PS1’s tradition of inviting artists to in 1963 but managed to escape across borders in disguise,
respond to its architectural space. Barrada’s installation remaining in exile until the 1970s. By merging the tradition
consists of colorful concrete blocks stacked into pyramid-like of acrobatics with themes of resistance and migration,
formations, encouraging engagement from visitors while also Barrada’s installation reflects both historical resilience and
serving as a backdrop for PS1’s Warm Up music series. contemporary urgency.
Inspired by Moroccan human pyramids, Brutalist architecture, Yto Barrada is recognized for her multidisciplinary practice,
and her family’s history, Barrada’s work challenges the engaging with archival research, performance, and cultural
prevalence of walls built to exclude, offering instead a histories. She is the founder of the Cinémathèque de
structure shaped by solidarity, movement, and escape. She Tanger, a nonprofit art-house cinema in North Africa, and
draws on the legacy of Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa, a fifteenth- The Mothership, an eco-feminist research center in Tangier.
century Sufi mystic and patron of acrobats, whose warrior- Her work has been exhibited at MoMA, the Venice Biennale,
led traditions fused mysticism with physical endurance. Her Tate Modern, and Whitechapel Gallery, and is held in major
sculptures reference traditional acrobatic formations, such as museum collections.
tqal (weight), bourj tarbaite (tower of four), and bourj benayma
ou chebaken (tower lift with net). Installation view of Yto Barrada: Le Grand Soir, on view at MoMA PS1 from
April 25, 2024 through 2026. Photo: Adam Reich

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