Interviewing the Embodiment of Political Evil - Inter

Shifting narratives:
Artists of the Algerian diaspora and institutional politics in
contemporary France
Alice Planel
Abstract
This paper evaluates shifting institutional discourse that lends alternate visibility and
invisibility to artists from the Algerian diaspora in French institutions of art between
2000 to 2013. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of diasporic
Algerian artists exhibiting in France. This is partly a generational phenomenon. As
scholarship demonstrates, second-generation Algerian immigrants are now active
across diverse cultural domains. Nevertheless, the cross-disciplinary research that
this paper presents, informed by interviews and data collection on institutions of art,
reveals how the shifting visibility/invisibility of diasporic artists is subject to current
political agenda of institutions of culture. Since 2001 the French government has
intervened directly to increase the status of contemporary French Art (Lebovici) and
consequently, young diasporic artists are increasingly exhibited (Grenier interview,
2012). However, artists Samta Benyahia, Adel Abdessemed and Kader Attia are
alternately exhibited as French, Algerian or diasporic artists depending upon
dominant narratives that range from hybridity, ethnic politics, assimilation, social
unrest, exile or French cultural heritage. These fluctuations in institutional terms of
representation are dependent on wider cultural discourse: in Foucauldian terms, the
political, economic and ideological uses of culture (Bennett, 1995; Yudice 2000 and
2003). Whilst the very existence of an Algerian diaspora has been questioned
(Begag, 2002), it remains a relevant social and cultural paradigm through which to
explore critically the narratives projected onto the work of artists of Algerian origin.
This paper is at the intersection of art institutional discourse, dominant narratives
and diasporic identities and maps continuous shifting borderlines between visibility
and invisibility.
Key Words: Diaspora, art, Algeria, France, institutional discourse, cultural
politics, visibility, invisibility
*****
1. Of diaspora and analyses of contemporary art.
The term diaspora is used by art historians and art professionals (critics, writers,
curators, museum directors) to distinguish between artists who are producing work
in their country of origin and artists who are producing work elsewhere – often in
western countries. To this end, the concept of diasporic artists is useful for it alludes
to diverse contexts of production. I argue that these differences in contexts of
production need to be recognised because they shape artistic practices. For example,
the artist Kader Attia grew up in France where he also studied. Work such as
Untitled, concrete blocks (2008) are influenced by American minimalism and sitespecific sculpture, as well as Algerian architecture. That Attia is an artist of the
Algerian diaspora is thus an important factor to consider in analysing his work.
The concept of a diaspora is also useful in analysing the social networks on
which artists are dependent; or in considering the artworld as a labour market, as
Charlotte Bydler and Hito Steyerl have done1. Bydler rightly argues that art
professionals have common habits and share a common 'language'. Indeed, Attia's
aesthetic influences which I have just cited, are understood by galerists, collectors
and art professionals in France, Europe and the US on which Attia's career is
dependent. Steyerl evokes the financial links that tie art professionals together.
Furthermore, artists of Algerian origin have contributed to each other's careers by
promoting one another's work. Whilst it is not in the remit of this paper, a study at
the conjecture of Art History and Diasporic Studies may thus shed light on the social
networks suggested above.
Nevertheless, the diaspora is a problematic paradigm through which to
consider the work of contemporary artists. All the artists that I consider in my thesis
have been concerned with themes that relate to Franco-Algerian or Algerian cultural
narratives and in this sense have enacted diasporic stances or adopted diasporic
idioms, to use Brubaker's definition2. Nevertheless, the concept of diaspora is more
relevant to the practices of some artists, less to others. To better explain I will offer a
brief contrast between the work of Adel Abdessemed and Kader Attia. On the one
hand Abdessemed's early work did refer to themes that pertained to identity and
Algerian culture such as Ombres et Lumières (1994), Passé simple (1997),
Chrysalide, ça tient à trois fils (1999), but today his work is better understood in a
global context, as with Hope (2011). Attia, on the other hand, has forged greater
links with Algeria and his work continues to be concerned with specific aspects of
migration, transcultural and colonial identities and Algerian architecture. To
consider the work of Abdessemed through the prism of the algerian diaspora thus
runs the risk of over-determining themes of cultural belonging, for example, that are
mostly irrelevant to his practice today.
Therefore, what I will be concerned with in this paper is the ways in which
artists of Algerian origin have been considered as a diaspora. When I use the term
diasporic artists I do not mean to define the artist's work, but the ways in which this
work is understood; how it has been exhibited, how it has been received. Why this
distinction? Firstly, because the work of artists of Algerian origin is not necessarily
concerned with experiences of diaspora, as I have just demonstrated. Secondly, as
Brubaker argues not all individuals considered to be members of a diaspora adopt
'diasporan attitudes'3. Indeed, national institutions of culture define diasporas
independently from the claims of community members. What this paper seeks to
briefly demonstrate, is that institutions of culture have used the work of artists of
Algerian origin to serve national and diplomatic ends. As a consequence diasporic
artists have been at time visible, at times invisible.
2. Is the Algerian community in France a diaspora?
I delay this discussion once again to consider the Algerian diaspora in more
detail. The writer of Algerian origin Azouz Begag has questioned whether the
Algerian community in France can in fact be defined as a diaspora4. The Algerian
community is indeed disparate and there is little evidence that it forms a diaspora in
the traditional sense - in which 'orientation to the homeland' and 'boundarymaintenance' are predominant5. Notwithstanding, the anthropologist Christine
Chivallon offers a contrasting paradigm through which to consider diasporic
communities in France6. Chivallon uses the Caribbean example to argue that the
concept of diaspora is relevant to communities for whom a ruptured history and an
experience of assimilation has thwarted the formation of a common identity7. This
hypothesis can be used in analyses of the Algerian community in France, for which
assimilation has greatly impeded the formation of a distinct culture.
At this point I feel it may be useful to provide an insight into the French
experience of multiculturalism and assimilation. Multiculturalism or the ‘integration’
of minority populations within the social fabric is a contentious issue in France.
Indeed, the inherent problems of multiculturalism are exacerbated in France by the
country’s Republican dependence on the principles of égalité, liberté, fraternité and
laïcité. The inclusion of divergent customs, languages and peoples within established
cultural, civic and judicial realms is intrinsically problematic. The desire to live
cultural and social difference is perceived to be an affront to the founding principles
of the French nation. Diasporic communities are thus invisible to the French
administration and diasporic culture is to a great extent subsumed in dominant
narratives. However, we will see that diasporic attitudes are increasingly called upon
in institutions of art.
3. Shifting institutional rhetoric.
I am now going to focus on several key exhibitions, chosen because they
epitomise shifting institutional rhetoric. The first is the exhibition Paris pour Escale
held at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2000. The second is the first
Triennale: la force de l'art in 2006 at the Grand Palais in Paris, the last is the
exhibition J'ai deux amours held at the Cité Nationale de L'Immigration in 2011.
In 2000 the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris held two concurrent
exhibitions that strove to make known artists of migrant origin in Paris. The
exhibition that concerns us here is 'Paris pour Escale', curated by Evelynne Jouanno
and Hou Hanru – although I will also mention the other exhibition L’Ecole de Paris,
1904-1929’, la part de l’autre’.8 This exhibition aimed to present contemporary art
by migrant artists. At the core of Jouanno and Hanru's statement about the exhibition
published in the exhibition catalogue, lay the belief that multiculturalism and
migration are essential to the development of societies9. Yet, they further argued,
multiculturalism and migration were phenomena ignored by French art institutions.
This exhibition is an important moment for the visibility of artists of Algerian origin.
It is the first exhibition of this scale in France. Furthermore, Paris pour Escale
emphasised the fact that the context of production was France. As such, Jouanno and
Hanru begin to formulate the notion that diasporic artists live and work in France.
That these artists are not referred to as diasporic in either the catalogue or press
reviews is perhaps explained by the belated use of the word in France to define any
other community than traditional diasporas such as the Jewish diaspora10. Paris pour
Escale is one of few exhibitions in France that have placed a similar emphasis on
context of production that allows for viewers and critics to understand specificities
of artistic production (Africa Remix by contrast made no distinction between artists
of the African continent and diasporic artists). I have stated that Jouanno and Hanru
had a political aim to give visibility to 'migrant artists'. However, their ambitions
were stilted by institutional and cultural rhetoric. The political visibility they wanted
to give to diasporic or migrant artists was diverted to lend weight to the historical
Idea of French Art. Jouanno and Hanru's curatorial discourse was undoubtedly meant
to mirror that of the exhibition of modern art ‘L’Ecole de Pasris, 1904-1929’, la part
de l’autre’ which sought to make manifest the central role played by foreign artists
in the history of French modern Art. Paris, Laurent Bossé writes,11 is no longer the
artistic epicentre it once was. The tendency to recall the capital's past glory reflects a
desire to rekindle the status of Paris as a capital of culture. Indeed, underlying the
discourse of cultural, artistic and geographic multiplicity that Paris pour Escale
aimed to demonstrate, is the idea of Paris as an artistic haven. Through the prism of
Paris pour Escale, Suzanne Pagé (curator at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de
Paris) placed Paris as one of the major stops in the nomadic artist's peregrination,
thus subtly emphasising the role supposedly played by France.12 She thus ignored the
political aspects of the exhibition envisaged by Jouanno and Hanru in their own
catalogue contribution.
The second exhibition I would like to discuss is La Force de l'Art which
took place in Paris in 2006. This exhibition was intended to be the first of a series of
Triennale exhibitions of contemporary art and was held at the Grand Palais. The aim
of the exhibition was to demonstrate to an international audience the scope and
quality of French contemporary Art. It was announced by the prime-minister and
was quickly referred to as 'expo Villepin' by the press13. Foucault would have regaled
at the exhibition's close relation to governmental politics which meant that the art
within was displayed as a monument of culture, an official stance on a national art
scene. This exhibition included artists that featured in the exhibition Paris pour
Escale such as Adel Abdessemed, while no mention was made in the Triennale of
their status as artistic 'migrants'. Furthermore, the exhibition showed the work of
Samta Benyahia, who had featured only three years previously as an Algerian artist
during the state-sponsored Franco-Algerian festival of culture Djazzaïr 03, une
année de l'Algérie en France. Why this shift in institutional rhetoric concerning these
artists? I argue that a perceived crisis in contemporary Art in France necessitated a
broader definition of 'French Art' to include artists from the diaspora. Artists of
Algerian origin were thus exhibited under this national label. In 2001 the sociologist
Alain Quemin published a report commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
on the status of French art in the global art market.14 The results were damming and
when 'Edition Jacqueline Chambon' and 'Artprice' published the report under the title
L'art contemporain international : entre les institutions et le marché (Le rapport
disparu), it sent a shockwave throughout French institutions of art. Commenting on
an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in late 2005 entitled Notre Histoire (our history)
- which incidentally showed the work of Adel Abdessemed and Kader Attia as part
of a French national scene - the art critics Hervé Gauville and Elisabeth Lebovici in
the national newspaper Liberation predicted that 2006 would be the year of politicoartistic manoeuvring to promote French art.15 In an interview I conducted with
Catherine Grenier from the Centre Pompidou in 2012, she hypothesised that the rise
of artists from the diaspora is linked to the world wide trend for political art.16
Traditionally, French art is not political and young diasporic artists would seem to
fulfil this criteria.
The third exhibition I want to discuss is the exhibition J'ai deux amours
held in 2012 at the Cité Nationale de L'immigration. The exhibition was curated by
Jouanno and Hanru and showcased the museum's collection of contemporary art.
The Cité was inaugurated in 2007 and has collected contemporary art as a means to
create a collection where there was none, and as means to nuance the idea of
immigration in France by introducing idiosyncratic narratives embodied in the art
works. However, the layers of meaning or 'wrappings', to use Lebovics term, that the
institution represents shape the meaning ascribed to these artists' work.17 In an
interview Isabelle Renard,18 the curator of the museum, reiterated that the origin of
artists – ie: their diasporic or immigrant status – was not part of the selection
process. Instead, artworks were selected for the collection of the Cité depending on
subject matter – those which dealt with issues of immigration and migration.
However, reviews of the show J'ai deux amours repeatedly disregarded this
information and wrote of 'nomadic artists',19 'migrant artists'.20 By suggesting that
these artists have experienced migration directly, these reviews demonstrate that the
nature of the exhibiting institution lends over-determined visibility to artists of
diasporic origin. While artists of foreign origin are thus made visible, the presence of
these practicing artists within France and its institutions is diminished because they
are considered first and foremost as immigrants, instead of French nationals. Why
are they not considered as French and as of Algerian origin – in other words as
diasporic? The narratives around artists of the diaspora that the press constructed in
relation to J'ai deux amours are mirrored in the official rhetoric of the Cité. The
website of the Cité promotes assimilation and national cohesion. The Cité's official
remit is not to demonstrate differences within the French nation-state, but instead to
recognise the history of immigration in France, in building national cohesion that
includes immigrant populations. The artists of Algerian origin exhibited in J'ai deux
amours are visible as immigrants but invisible as members of a diaspora, as Dufoix
has described it.21
4. Visible/invisible
As a conclusion I want to consider the third Triennale exhibition that took
place at the Palais de Tokyo in 2012 entitled 'Intense Proximité'. To try and
distinguish it from the two previous editions of the Triennale - heavily criticised in
the press for its affiliation with governmental politics, its nationalistic overtones and
its limited popularity both nationally and internationally - the 2012 edition of the
Triennale dropped the name 'Force de l'Art' and moved to the Palais de Tokyo, an
institution of contemporary art. It also employed the curator Okwui Enwezor, an
international reference in terms of diasporic and African art to lead a team of young
international curators. Enwezor chose a theme close to his own practice as a curator:
post-colonial theory. Artists of the diaspora, artists of French origin residing in
France, artists of non-western origin living outside of France were all shown
together without any emphasis being placed on nationality. However, the title of the
exhibition and the postcolonial theory that framed the curatorial rhetoric suggested
that the exhibition aimed to complicate the status and representation of postcolonial
subjects in western societies. Therefore the national newspaper Le Monde wrote that
Enwezor was successful in creating an exhibition “in the French art scene and not of
the French art scene”“dans la scène française, et non sur la scène française”.22
However, Vivian Rehberg,23 in an English language magazine (Frieze), points out
that the 'outdated and chauvinistic national rhetoric' of the previous Triennale haunts
Intense Proximité. Indeed, the minister of culture Frederic Mitterand was granted a
catalogue preface in which he lauds the vitality of the French art scene.24 Enwezor
was questioned about the suitability of organising such an exhibition in France;25
where postcolonial theory has failed to make an appearance in the academy and
there is little discourse around diasporic or non-western art in institutions of art and
culture. Enwezor responded by citing the same event he cites in the exhibition
catalogue to prove the relevance of such an exhibition in France:26 the soup kitchen
in Paris that had served porc in its soup to actively discriminate against muslim
populations. Within the exhibition itself, however, Enwezor stays clear of any direct
political references. He thus evades a fascinating and fundamental problem of postcolonial France, that artists of Algerian origin are newly visible in cultural settings,
but they remain invisible as diasporic artists. In other words their artistic practices
are exhibited under the label of French art, or under the label of Algerian or Arabic
art. Only very seldom is their work exhibited to complicate the very meaning of a
national French art. And the meaning of a French art needs to be questioned - in the
context of an artworld that claims to be global, and a multicultural society that the
public administration does not acknowledge - as Jouanno and Hanru had attempted
to do in 2001 with Paris pour Escale.
Notes
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1
Charlotte, Bydler, The Global Art World Inc.: On the globalization of Contemporary Art (Uppsala: Uppsala University,
2004)
2
Rogers Brubaker, 'The 'diaspora' diaspora', Ethnic and Racial Studies (2005), 28 (1): 1-19
3
Rogers Brubaker, 'The 'diaspora' diaspora', Ethnic and Racial Studies (2005), 28 (1): 1-19
4
Azouz Begag, 'Les relations France-Algérie vues de la diaspora algérienne', Modern & Contemporary France (2002)
10:4 : 475-482
5
Rogers Brubaker, 'The 'diaspora' diaspora', Ethnic and Racial Studies (2005), 28 (1): 1-19
6
Christine Chivallon, 'De quelques préconstruits de la notion de diaspora à partir de l'exemple antillais', Revue
européenne des migrations internationales (2007),13 (1) :149-160
7
Christine Chivallon, 'De quelques préconstruits de la notion de diaspora à partir de l'exemple antillais', Revue
européenne des migrations internationales (2007),13 (1) :149-160
8
The exhibition title can be translated as The School of Paris, 1904-1929. That of the other.
9
Evelynne Jouanno and Hou Hanru in Paris pour Escale (Paris: Editions Paris Musées, 2000)
10
Stéphane Dufoix, Diasporas (London and Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008)
11
Laurent Bossé in Paris pour Escale (Paris: Editions Paris Musées, 2000)
12
Suzanne Pagé in Paris pour Escale (Paris: Editions Paris Musées, 2000)
13
Béatrice Comte, 'Suffit-il d'Affirmer la Force de l'Art?', Le Figaro Magazine (20 May 2006), 76
Henri-François Debailleux, 'Fromentin n'Ira pas à 'L'Expo-Villepin'', Libération (4 April 2006), in libération.fr,
<http:www.libération.fr> (Accessed 25 June 2012)
14
Alain Quemin, Le rôle des pays prescripteurs sur le marché et dans le monde de l'art contemporain, Direction Générale
de la Coopération internationale et du développement, Rapport au Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, 2001.
15
Hervé Gauville and Elisabeth Lebovici, '“Notre Histoire...” a Dormir Debout', Libération (24 January 2006), in
Libération.fr <http:liberation.fr> (Accessed on 26 April 2012)
16
Catherine Grenier, Interview, Paris 03-10-2012
17
Herman Lebovics, Bringing the Empire Back Home: France in the Global Age, (Durham, N.C: Duke University Press,
2004)
18
Isabelle Renard, Interview, Paris 15-05-2012
19
Christian Alandete, 'International Identity', So Chic (Winter 2011): 20-23
20
Bachar Rahmani, 'Créateurs Migrateurs à Paris', Afrique Asie (January 2012), 74, 82
21
Stéphane Dufoix, Diasporas (London and Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008)
22
Emanuelle Lequeux, A la Triennale de Paris, l'universalité en question, Le Monde 21.04.2012
23
Vivian Sky Rehberg La Triennale 2012, Frieze (September 2012), 149 : 163
24
Okwui Enwezor, Mélanie Bouteloup, Intense Proximité, une anthologie du proche et du lointain (Paris: Art Lys
Editions, 2012)
25
Paul Ardenne, 'Triennale de Paris' interview with Okui Enwezor, Art Press 389, May 2012
26
Okwui Enwezor, Mélanie Bouteloup, Intense Proximité, une anthologie du proche et du lointain (Paris: Art Lys
Editions, 2012)