New York – Marc Glimcher, CEO and President of Pace Gallery, announced today that the gallery will begin representing Latifa Echakhch in collaboration with her existing galleries, Kamel Mennour, Kaufmann Repetto, and Dvir Gallery.
Echakhch, whose internationally celebrated practice spans painting, sculpture, and installation, explores the political valences of a diverse range of materials in her work. Echakhch’s abstractions and lyrical forms meditate on personal and societal conflicts, memory, and migration, among other subjects. Describing her practice as a synthesis of “politics and poetry,” Echakhch employs methods of erasure and destruction to transform everyday objects into culturally loaded signifiers of identity, history, and mythology.
“In the field of political and historical links, I always take care not to be too frontal, too simplistic—the political context is more complex than that, and my rule as an artist is not to make any obvious politically oriented messages. It’s a question of power and postures,” the artist said of her practice in a 2019 interview with Mousse Magazine, adding, “I have no other goals but questioning the world around me.”
Large-scale interventions have become a renowned element of Echakhch’s multi-faceted practice. For her widely exhibited 2007 installation A chaque stencil une révolution (For each stencil a revolution), the artist treated carbon paper with a chemical solvent to make the material bleed a vibrant azure hue reminiscent of International Klein Blue. That work takes its title from a quote by the late Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat. It also references the use of carbon paper and stencil machines for printed materials made and distributed by protest groups in the 1960s. Other notable installations include a 2014 presentation in the Centre Pompidou’s Espace 315—mounted after the artist was awarded the Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2013—and a 2019 exhibition at the Fondazione Memmo, Rome.
In 2022, Echakhch will represent Switzerland at the 59th Venice Biennale and present her first solo exhibition with Pace at the gallery’s new London space on Hanover Square. Opening in March 2022, the artist’s exhibition in London will serve as a precursor to her presentation in the Venice Biennale. With the inauguration of its new London gallery in fall 2021, Pace will continue to expand its contemporary program in Europe by way of landmark exhibitions and regularly held Pace Live events. Pace looks forward to supporting Echakhch in the development of future exhibitions, publishing projects, and other programming in collaboration with her other galleries.
Marc Glimcher says:
“Latifa is an artist who mines the complexities of political and cultural histories to make work that speaks to contemporary times. Her singular voice is vital in today’s world and complements our growing program of contemporary artists who are examining and changing society through their art-making. We look forward to Latifa’s first exhibition at Pace in our new Hanover Square gallery in London, just ahead of her project for the Swiss pavilion in Venice. We are delighted to collaborate with her other galleries to create a support system for Latifa as her career continues to reach new heights.”
Latifa Echakhch says:
“I am very happy to join Marc Glimcher and Pace’s incredible team. The manner in which the gallery is organized— and the way it commits to supporting artists’ careers with depth, dedication, and long-term care—is something that resonated with me. A sincere attachment to artists as human beings and real support of their sensitivities and practices are essential values to me. More than ever, we need a real belief in and a love of art.”
Echakhch has figured in group shows at institutions including the Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing; MoMA PS1, New York; the Studio Museum in Harlem; the Institute of Contemporary Art Singapore; and the Kunsthalle Basel. Her work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; MACBA – Museu d’Art Contemporain, Barcelona, Spain; the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and other international museums and foundations.
The artist has also exhibited major installations at the Power Plant, Toronto, where her work Cross Fade featured a crumbling fresco of clouds, and the 2017 Istanbul Biennial, which showcased her fragmented fresco Crowd Fade. In 2020, the artist presented a solo exhibition titled The Sun and the Set at BPS22, Charleroi.
About the artist
Currently based in the Swiss cities of Martigny and Vevey, Echakhch was born in 1974 in El Khnansa, Morocco. When she was three, her family relocated to France, where she attended the École supérieure d’Art de Grenoble and later received degrees from the National School of Arts Cergy-Pontoise and the Lyon National School of Fine Arts. She began her studio practice in 2001.
In 2007, Echakhch presented A chaque stencil une révolution at Le Magasin, Grenoble, as part of her first solo museum exhibition. Echakhch later showed the work at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Pinault Collection, Venice; and Tate Modern, London.
Echakhch won the Marcel Duchamp Prize, France’s most vaunted art award, in 2013. As Alfred Pacquement, then- Director of the Centre Pompidou and head of the jury for the award, said of the artist at the time, “Her work, between surrealism and conceptualism, questions with economy and precision the importance of symbols and reflects the fragility of modernism.”
In 2015, Echakhch presented Screen Shot at the Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, and she was awarded the Zurich Art Prize. The installation comprised a labyrinth of paravents made from canvas panels, atop which the artist draped her own clothes soaked in India ink and giant carnival figures. Echakhch has said of the work, “Many times in my work practice I’ve been focused on what we call ‘la dépossession’ of Christ, this moment when his clothes are taken by people as he walks the streets, leaving him with almost nothing. Sacrificed by the other and for the other. It’s for me a strong image of a forced minimalism.”
Pace is a leading international art gallery representing some of the most influential contemporary artists and estates from the past century, holding decades-long relationships with Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet, Barbara Hepworth, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, and Mark Rothko. Pace enjoys a unique U.S. heritage spanning East and West coasts through its early support of artists central to the Abstract Expressionist and Light and Space movements.
Since its founding by Arne Glimcher in 1960, Pace has developed a distinguished legacy as an artist-first gallery that mounts seminal historical and contemporary exhibitions. Under the current leadership of President and CEO Marc Glimcher, Pace continues to support its artists and share their visionary work with audiences worldwide by remaining at the forefront of innovation. Now in its seventh decade, the gallery advances its mission through a robust global program—comprising exhibitions, artist projects, public installations, institutional collaborations, performances, and interdisciplinary projects. Pace has a legacy in art bookmaking and has published over five hundred titles in close collaboration with artists, with a focus on original scholarship and on introducing new voices to the art historical canon. The gallery has also spearheaded exploration into the intersection of art and technology through new business models, exhibition interpretation tools, and representation of artists engaging with technology.
Today, Pace has nine locations worldwide including London, Geneva, a strong foothold in Palo Alto, and two galleries in New York—its headquarters at 540 West 25th Street, which welcomed almost 120,000 visitors and programmed 20 shows in its first six months and an adjacent 8,000 sq. ft. exhibition space at 510 West 25th Street. Pace was one of the first international galleries to establish outposts in Asia, where it operates permanent gallery spaces in Hong Kong and Seoul, as well as an office and viewing room in Beijing. In 2020, Pace opened temporary exhibition spaces in East Hampton and Palm Beach, with continued programming on a seasonal basis. In fall 2021, Pace will continue to expand its European presence with the opening of a larger gallery space in London.
