Duration
21.6.23, 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Language
German, French
Info
The conversation between Algerian artist Denis Martinez and French-American curator and author Natasha Marie Llorens at the Institut français ties in with the themes of the exhibition “Hamid Zénati. All-Over”, on view at Haus der Kunst until July 23. The Algerian artist Denis Martinez is a contemporary of Zénati. The two share a love of color and form, as well as a life far from their homeland.
Martinez talks with the author Natasha Marie Llorens about the social aspects of Martinez’s work in an Algerian context, his evolution from painting towards performative actions and the theories of liveness in artistic practice that he has developed over several decades. The discussion will be accompanied by excerpts of a film about Martinez’s work directed by Claude Hirsch, Denis Martinez, un homme en libertés (Denis Martinez, Man of Liberties), from 2014.
Denis Martinez (b. 1941 in Mers El Hadjadj, Algeria), is one of the key figures in the cultural scene of Algeria after the War of Independence. While his multi-faceted practice, which continuously challenges the limits of painting and is often collaborative, is deeply inspired by the landscapes around Oran where he grew up, he also incorporates the cultural traditions of the Berber (Amazigh) and Arab peoples, a tactic intended to recapture authenticity and reintroduce the quality of magic mark-making. He attended the Schools of Fine Arts in Algiers and in Paris and became a Professor for Drawing at the School of Fine Arts of Algiers in 1963, where his teaching had a lasting influence on several generations of artists. With the establishment of an independent Algeria, artists, writes, musicians and poets sought to develop a cultural identity that would liberate Algerian art from French colonial influences and reconnect with popular tradition. Denis Martinez is one of the founders, alongside Choukri Mesli, of the group Aouchem (“tattoo”), a movement inspired by pan-African thought that sought an Algerian aesthetic by looking towards the indigenous arts of the past yet advocating for freedom of expression. Forced into exile in 1994 during the Black Decade, he settled in Marseilles and taught at the Aix-en-Provence School of Art between 1995 and 2006. The artist now spends his life between France and Algeria.
Natasha Marie Llorens (PhD, Columbia University) is a writer, independent curator and professor of art theory at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. She writes about contemporary art and film with a focus on the representation of violence and decoloniality in the arts and institutions. Llorens’s writing has appeared in Arab Studies Journal, Artforum, e-flux Criticism, frieze and the Journal of North African Studies, among others. Llorens is currently working in collaboration with Tours-based artist Massinissa Selmani on a two-year artistic research project about “1,000 Socialist Villages”, focused on an urban planning initiative launched in Algeria in the mid-1970s.
The talk is in French with simultaneous German translation. It will take place at the Institut français (Kaulbachstraße 13, 80539 Munich). Registration is not required.