The Lovers II

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Whitehall

Two decommissioned rusty ships, in this photograph by artist Zineb Sedira, float incongruously, in the shallows of a sea, seemingly locked in an embrace. Titled The Lovers we find ourselves identifying with these ships in the somewhat lonely surroundings they are in. We wonder why they are there, what binds them together, and what will become of them. The scene also acknowledges the perils of sea journeys travelled by many in makeshift or rickety boats today. Through her distinctive art practice, where she brings together autobiography with documentary and fiction, Sedira examines what it means to live between cultures and to be in ‘spaces where mobility expires’. Born in Paris to Algerian parents, her own narratives are embedded in histories of migration and exile, and through this lens, she investigates how visionary acts of imagination carry us to different places through time and space. In this photograph the sea offers up a charged geopolitical and enigmatic space for movement and relationships, both imagined and real.

Zineb Sedira was selected to represent France at the 2022 Venice Biennale, the first artist of Algerian descent to do so. Dreams Have No Titles received the Special Mention of the Jury and was later shown at London’s Whitechapel Gallery (2024); the High Line in New York, US; Gwangju Biennial, Gwanju, South Korea; and Hamburger Bahnholf, Berlin, Germany (all 2023). Solo exhibitions of her work have also been held in numerous institutions over the past two decades, including the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (2024); De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea (2022), Dundee Contemporary Arts (2023); Dallas Contemporary, US (2022); Jeu de Paume, France (2019); Beirut Art Center, Lebanon (2018); Sharjah Art Foundation Art Spaces, UAE (2018) and Art on the Underground, London (2016). Her work is in numerous public collections, including The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; Mathaf – Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow Museums; Tate, London; and V&A, London.

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

Artist

Zineb Sedira (1963 - )

Title

The Lovers II

Date

Medium

C Print Edition 3/4

Dimensions

height: 134cm; width: 109cm; depth: 4.6cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Goodman Gallery, September 2023

Provenance

Goodman Gallery, London UK; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 15 September 2023

GAC number

19197