The exhibition "Arab Presences - Modern Art and Decolonization Paris, 1908 - 1988", which opened on April 3, 2024 at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, foregrounds over 130 rarely shown artists whose works make an essential contribution to the Arab avant-garde and the history of modern art in the 20th century, including the three key figures of modern art represented by the gallery: Mahjoub Ben Bella (1946-2020), Inji Efflatoun (1924-1989), Baya Mahieddine (1931-1998), Chaïbia Talal (1929-2004) and Amal Abdenour (1931-2020).
The exhibition offers to rediscover the diversity of 20th-century Arab modernism and to take a fresh look at the history of art scenes still little known in Europe. Through a selection of over 200 works, most of which have never before been exhibited in France, the exhibition Modern Art and Decolonization: Paris 1908 - 1988 focuses on the relationship between Arab artists and Paris throughout the 20th century.
The exhibition explores a different history of modern art, illuminated by a wealth of historical audio and visual archive material. Organised chronologically, it begins in 1908, the year in which the Lebanese poet and artist Gibran Khalil Gibran arrived in Paris and the opening of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Cairo. The period ended in 1988, with the first exhibition devoted to contemporary Arab artists at the Institut du Monde Arabe (officially opened a few months earlier) in Paris and with the exhibition Singuliers: bruts ou naïfs, featuring among others Moroccan artist Chaïbia Tallal and Tunisian artist Jaber Al-Mahjoub, at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris. As art historian Silvia Naef writes in the catalogue for the Arab Presences exhibition at the MAM, "How can we create a modern Arab art? A real aesthetic project was set up in the course of the 20th century, one that broke away from academic art, echoed the Western avant-gardes and was conceived within the framework of a specific national identity, without returning to an Islamic art form."
Curated by :
Odile Burluraux (Musée d'Art Moderne)
Morad Montazami & Madeleine de Colnet (Zamân Books & Curating)
