Exhibition talk:

Simone Fattal in conversation with Emma Enderby

(in English)

Simone Fattal was born 1942 in Damascus and grew up in Lebanon. She studied philosophy at the Ecole des Lettres of Beirut and at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1969, she returned to Beirut and started painting. She participated in numerous exhibitions while living in Lebanon. In 1980, she left and settled in California where she founded the Post-Apollo Press; for the next thirty years, she dedicated herself to publishing literature and poetry. In the late 1980s, she studied sculpture at the San Francisco Art Institute and fell in love with working with clay. She now lives and works in Paris.

In her exhibition metaphorS, Simone Fattal presents bodies of work from different periods in her career and in a variety of media, including fired clay and ceramic sculptures, paintings, and collages. In her works, conflict, consensus, nature, faith, and trust are central concerns. Despite (or precisely because of) the artist’s nomadic life, her oeuvre is deeply rooted in the millennia-old culture and history of the Middle East: the epic literature, poetry, archaeology, and the landscapes of this region, are both vital sources of inspiration and central themes.

Emma Enderby is a curator, writer, and lecturer of modern and contemporary art and since May 2024 director of KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. From 2021 until 2024 she was the Head of Programs and Research/Chief Curator at Haus der Kunst, Munich, where she curated exhibitions by Liliane Lijn, Tony Cokes, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Previously, as Chief Curator at The Shed, New York, the British curator worked on founding the new institution and curated Agnes Denes’ retrospective exhibition as well as exhibitions and commissions with Trisha Donnelly, Oscar Murillo, and Carrie Mae Weems. As exhibitions curator at the Serpentine Galleries, London, she organized numerous projects and exhibitions including with Hilma af Klint, Rachel Rose, and Adrián Villa Rojas. 

Emma Enderby further works as a visiting lecturer, critic, and speaker at a number of universities and institutions, as well as an editor and writer for multiple publications and catalogues. She holds degrees from University College London and University of Oxford.

An event organized by the Secession Friends