Sophie Kovel '22 in Solo Show at Petrine, Paris

For Visual Arts alum Sophie Kovel ’22, the new year began with a solo show at Petrine Gallery in Paris, France. A Long Duration of Losses, which opened on January 6, 2023, engages the contested history of the Baba Merzoug (also known as La Consulaire), which is a large cannon removed by the French government from Algeria during the Invasion of Algiers in 1830. Three years later, on July 29, 1833, the cannon was ceremonially erected in Brest, a naval port, where it was titled La Consulaire. 

In July of 2012, over 100 years after the Baba Merzoug was taken by France, the Algerian government submitted an official request to have the cannon returned. As of January, 2021, the French government has released a commissioned report that addresses the issue of the monument alongside the larger issue of national memory reconciliation, but has not returned the cannon. 

In keeping with Kovel’s approach to art making from a critical studies perspective, when asked by Julius Woeste of Petrine Gallery to put together a solo show, Kovel “felt strongly it was an opportunity to address the colonial question” by exploring the history of Baba Merzoug. 

For A Long Duration of Losses, Kovel took a prismatic approach to historical discourse and made expert use of the gallery’s space, much in the same way she did at Jenkins Johnson gallery in Brooklyn, NY. 

This time around, Kovel created a windowed vault within which one may encounter the poignant residues of history through isolation, abstraction, and a subtle play with form. 

For instance, on the gallery’s walls, Kovel hung a series of French colonial postcards from the early 1900s “at the height of the surrounding fence at La Consulaire.” Beside offering viewers a somatically-forward chance to closely and intimately examine the contents of the serialized postcards, Kovel’s choice also creates a horizontal line in space that holds the  blips and gaps and repetitions of this chunk of French history. 

Kovel’s knack for restructuring historical discourse and redirecting one’s gaze toward the semiotic especially shines in Lieu de memoire (Coq en bronze), 2022, a patinated copper replica of the Gallic cockerel that decorates the top of the Baba Merzoug/La Consulaire. Kovel placed this piece on the floor, directly in line with the pathway through which one enters the exhibition space. The gesture is subtle yet unmistakable in its invitation to visitors to come face-to-face, or, perhaps, foot-to-face with the symbolized remnants of colonialism that nonetheless persist, even when brought down from sky to ground, even when deconstructed or demolished. 

A Long Duration of Losses will remain on view until February 25, 2023. 

Additionally, on February 14, 2023, from 10:00–11:30 am EST, Petrine Gallery will host a Zoom panel discussion with KJ Abudu (Curator, 2023 Lagos Biennial; Editor, Living with Ghosts: A Reader), Nacira Guénif-Souilamas (University Paris 8 Vincennes - Saint-Denis), and Léopold Lambert (Founding Editor, The Funambulist) about the spatial history of racism and states of emergency (in France, Algeria, Kanaky) and the unfulfilled project of decolonization. The discussion will be followed by an open conversation moderated by the artist, Sophie Kovel. 

To attend the event, please register here or RSVP at [email protected].

Sophie Kovel is an artist and writer. Recent and forthcoming exhibitions include Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Demark; VERY Project Space, Berlin; the Jewish Museum, New York; Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York; University of California, Los Angeles, and Petrine, Paris. Kovel has spoken on panels and symposiums at universities and institutions including Columbia University and the Brooklyn Public Library. Her interviews and criticism have been published in Artforum, BOMB, Frieze, Spike, and elsewhere. Kovel is a recent graduate from Columbia University’s MFA in New Genres, where she was awarded the Agnes Martin and Andrew Fisher Fellowships.