Through her art making, Yto Barrada offers a unique lens in which to see the world. The Moroccan-French artist has recent work on view at Pace Gallery in East Hampton that is emblematic of the creative endeavors and concerns that have occupied her for some two decades.
These, as the gallery notes, are based in a mining of historical figures, sites, and situations for artistic material. This pursuit results in numerous forms and themes that she works on simultaneously, never seeming to run out of things to say in a given work or series.
These particular works encompass her "reappropriation" of Frank Stella's "Moroccan paintings;" collages of naturally dyed velvets; photograms of candy wrappers; paper collages in response to the 1960 earthquake in the Moroccan city of Agadir, and functional furniture sculptures inspired by 18th-century French designs and made with Moroccan weaving techniques.
On May 12, after putting some finishing touches on the show, she paused for a discussion of what's on view here as well as her other projects. These included an exhibition that recently opened at the Museum of Modern Art, which she culled from its collection, adding a few of her own works.
One of the first things that becomes apparent from the East Hampton show is the breadth of projects Ms. Barrada works on simultaneously. This carries over into the MoMA show, she said, even if it's not intentional. "When you work on different projects, there's a porosity and they all bleed into each other."
She is also working on a monograph of Bettina Grossman, a 93-year-old artist she has collaborated with previously, including an exhibition on Governors Island in 2019. "Bettina has contaminated my work, and me hers," she noted.
Her show at MoMA is centered on the ideas of Fernand Deligny, a French social worker who worked with nonverbal children with intellectual and developmental disabilities in rural France from the 1960s until his death in 1996. The exhibition's title, "The Raft," is taken from his term for the informal network he developed to work with the children outside large institutional settings. Ms. Barrada said she gathered works from MoMA's collection focusing on gesture "or artists whose way of thinking or art echoed directly with some of his principles or experiments."
With so many things going on at once, her approach to her daily artistic practice is philosophical. "One day you plan to do one thing at a time and then life interrupts," she said. "But sometimes when you work on one piece, it's really interesting to push even if nothing works, just to play around."
Then there are days she channels the principles of origami in her practice. When "you're messing up and can't get the paper to fold properly, it's recommended to just put it down." This may happen by choice or not. Sometimes it's "because the days are too short." In general, she said a nonlinear way of working functions better for her than being too caught up in one piece.
She sees her works and shows all as ongoing projects. "The exhibitions -- putting it out there publicly -- is one deadline, but it's not the end. The questions to pursue, they still continue after."
Now that the MoMA show has opened, she said she finally has time to read Deligny's work without the need "of finding a smart quote to put in the show. . . . This is the first time in a year that I can read him with no intention, which is quite agreeable."
Although her work is layered with history, tragedy, geography, politics, and meaning, she emphasizes that it is not necessary to know it. "They're just my ways of making things."
"I'm not interested in this whole essential storytelling. For me, more and more, that's all irritating crap." She said her stories are interesting the way any story is interesting. "They're associations of ideas that I have. So if you have me in the room, I'll tell you a million things . . . but they're absolutely nonessential."
That morning, she said, she was sitting in the gallery when some visitors arrived. She was tempted to introduce herself and tell them about her work, but then told herself, "No, sit down, shut up, and listen, because I never get to listen to people. And they were so brilliant."
MoMA will present a live virtual talk on its show tonight at 8. A program of films Ms. Barrada selected for their connection to the ideas and work of Deligny will run from June 3 to June 22. The Pace Gallery show is on view through Sunday.
