Shimon Attie

Shimon Attie (b. 1957 in Los Angeles, CA; lives and works in New York, NY) is a multimedia artist, whose work comprises photographs, video installations, new media and works on paper. Concerned with questions and themes surrounding memory, place and identity, Attie’s early work reanimates the lost history of public spaces through site-specific projects, while his later work continues to investigate the past alongside the important socio-political issues of our time.

In his 2017 installation, Lost in Space (After Huck), originally exhibited at the St. Louis Art Museum and later at Jack Shainman Gallery | The School in Kinderhook, NY, Attie creates an immersive environment, drawing inspiration from St. Louis’ location on the Mississippi River and its proximity to Ferguson, MO. The work features a floating raft on which select objects are placed, such as a corn-cob pipe, referencing Mark Twain’s seminal novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as well as a large police light, referencing the recent Ferguson protests against police brutality—a commentary on the pervasion of institutionalized racism in America. In the site-specific project, Night Watch (2018), Attie created a floating installation atop a barge and tugboat that travelled around New York City’s waterways. A screen on the boat showed a silent film on loop featuring 12 New Yorkers who were recently granted political asylum, a literal and metaphoric space of safe-passage and escape. Night Watch also referenced New York’s long history as a safe haven for refugees by visually engaging with landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty, One World Trade Center, the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges along its route.