ALGERIANISM
This is a slightly amended review written for The Nour Festival Blog
ALGERIANISM
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| Patrick Altes |
Algerianism, if considered at all, in this country tends to
be conceptualised as coming in a box marked pied noir, - often wrongly
associated with the work of Albert Camus. The French rather than Algerian
element taking precedence. This Exhibition however represents a confident
exploration by Algerians seeking to explore their own complex identity, though
the ghosts of French occupation, colonial presence and influence on Algerian
culture is very much present as well.
Now of course the
idea that Algeria and metropolitan France were as one was not only absurd but also
camouflaged the reality of French imperialism, racism and brutality. That said
the French presence in Algeria introduced a unique element into Algerian
culture, and it is the ghost of this presence that haunts the pictures of
Patrick Altes, a French artist, in which images of the past and present are
fused together to suggest continuity rather than the sudden fracture we imagine
when we think of revolution and the attainment of independence.
The exhibition represents a direct assault on stereotypes
of, more generally North African, and specifically Algerian culture. The
exhibition ranging from a young girl dressed in football kit to the more
conventional images of Arab culture. Pictures too that display the complex
interweaving of the traditional and the modern, as in Mizo’s ‘Once Upon A time
El Haik,’ portraying in a variety of poses the traditional white fabric worn by
the women of Algiers.
For me the most startling pictures were those of Yasser
Ameur, whose modern Take on Delacroix’s Raft of Medusa, Babor Dzaiyer, stayed
with me long after I had left the Tabernacle.
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| Babor Dzaiyer |
