Books by Emilie GOUDAL
From 1954 to 1962, the Independence War or Algerian War — depending on whether the story is narra... more From 1954 to 1962, the Independence War or Algerian War — depending on whether the story is narrated from the perspective of the victors or the defeated — touched many generations of international artist, while also penetrating and pushing aesthetic questions about representations of the unspeakable. By tracing the scar of this break between France and Algeria through the prism of art, this book reveals the importance of a crucial historical moment, hitherto unexamined by art history, which continues to bear upon contemporary politics in France. Offering exploratory themes not only to a generation of budding artists who affirmed their social and artistic commitments during the events of Mai 68, but also to artists from postcolonial world who proclaimed a modernity without hierarchy and the writing of unsaid histories, the Algerian War produced some of the fundamental issues underpinning the contemporary French and Algerian art worlds. With the historic prescription of a fifty years’ deferral now being over, the conflicted memories of the French defeat continue to trouble the undisturbed writing and exhibition of this sequence of historical events, formative key to construction of contemporary France. Consequently, this study proposes a critical examination of the representation of this “non history” in the French museum. In so doing, it estimates the impact of a “non-consensual” history on contemporary artistic practice touched by issues of memory and politics, and which interrogate notions of identity(ies) and "integration".
Exhibition by Emilie GOUDAL
Ces voix qui m'assiègent, 2024
Ces voix qui m’assiègent... [These voices that besiege me...], whose title is borrowed from the ... more Ces voix qui m’assiègent... [These voices that besiege me...], whose title is borrowed from the writings of Assia Djebar, comprises a compilation of works, images and archives produced in connection with the Algerian decolonisation movement and the country’s feminist struggles, which have spread outward from Algeria like echoes, fragments and the voice of an ongoing struggle for emancipation.
Curated by: Émilie Goudal & Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez
Group exhibition held from May 16 to July 13... more Curated by: Émilie Goudal & Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez
Group exhibition held from May 16 to July 13, 2024
Ces voix qui m’assiègent [These voices that besiege me…) whose title is borrowed from the writings of Assia Djebar, comprises a compilation of works, images and archives produced in connection with the Algerian decolonisation movement and the country’s feminist struggles, which have spread outward from Algeria like echoes, fragments and the voice of an ongoing struggle for emancipation.
Here, Algeria should not be understood in terms of a country with national borders, a specific history and geographical location, but rather as an epistemological and critical motor capable of revealing the echoes that vibrate at the heart of our visual history.
Papers by Emilie GOUDAL
Gradhiva
Le projet de musée d'art moderne d'Alger (Mama), né au lendemain de l'indépendance, dans le silla... more Le projet de musée d'art moderne d'Alger (Mama), né au lendemain de l'indépendance, dans le sillage du premier Festival culturel panafricain d'Alger et du don solidaire de plusieurs artistes internationaux d'une collection d'oeuvres d'art moderne, n'a abouti à sa construction qu'en 2007. Premier musée algérien comme maghrébin dédié à l'art moderne et fondé hors gouvernance coloniale, le Mama semble, par la référence explicite au MoMA de New York, vouloir inscrire la capitale algérienne dans une cartographie internationale plus inclusive des lieux d'exposition institutionnels de la création artistique contemporaine. Vitrine de la création locale, régionale, continentale tout autant qu'internationale, le Mama incarne-t-il un musée de rupture, ou bien de négociation, avec une certaine définition hégémonique de la modernité artistique ? Alors qu'il est aujourd'hui en activité depuis plus de dix ans et qu'il a enrichi ses collections à travers de nouveaux dons, l'analyse des expositions et publications produites par le Mama nous permet d'interroger, depuis la postcolonie, une possible émancipation des récits artistiques, voire la modernité négociée au musée.
Critique d’art, 2018
Mirroring an interview of Edward W. Saïd that is yet unpublished in French, the philosopher Selou... more Mirroring an interview of Edward W. Saïd that is yet unpublished in French, the philosopher Seloua Luste Boulbina ironically asks: "Can the Arab speak?" 1 It is also a reference to the title of Gayatri Spivak's famous essay on the silenced voice of subalterns 2 , but it takes on a new dimension in regards to the recent international publications devoted to critical and artistic works produced in the Middle East and Defining a Space for New Art Genealogies-North-African and Middle-Eastern M...
Quaderns de la Mediterrània, 2011
L’art en France à la croisée des cultures, Heidelberg: arthistoricum.net, 2023 (Passages online, Band 8, 2023
22 dessins modernes, 112 dessins anciens et 188 peintures d'artistes européens auxquelles s'ajout... more 22 dessins modernes, 112 dessins anciens et 188 peintures d'artistes européens auxquelles s'ajoutent 3 oeuvres prêtées pour l'exposition d'art français à Tokyo, en transit à Paris au moment du déplacement des oeuvres d'Alger vers la métropole. 3 Lettre du 18 mai 1962 de Pierre Dussaule, sous-directeur des Beaux-Arts à l'attention de Monsieur Thuiller, cote : 20150044/221, [DMF/1/75], Archives Nationales, Pierrefite. Il est mentionné que ce départ des collections a reçu l'aval « des autorités du Haut commissariat (M. Tricot) et de l'exécutif provisoire (M. Chentouf) ». 4 Musée du Louvre, Château de Versailles, Musée d'art moderne, etc. 5 Dons Fréderic Lung, Baron Arthur Chassériau, etc. Émilie Goudal, « Patrimoine critique et modernité en partage ? Retours de la collection du Musée des Beaux-arts d'Alger (1962-1969) », dans Kirchner, Laks et Zabunyan (ed.), L'art en
Hommes et Migrations, Jan 2021
La place accordée aux artistes algérien.ne.s post-indépendance dans les collections d’art moderne... more La place accordée aux artistes algérien.ne.s post-indépendance dans les collections d’art moderne des musées français engage à questionner le récit institutionnel de la modernité. Car cette reconnaissance demeure ambivalente. En travaillant les formes de l’hybridité postcoloniale, ces artistes participent à de nouvelles narrations mondialisées. Mais leur mise en visibilité dans les institutions muséales peine à se défaire des assignations identitaires, héritage de l’histoire coloniale.
Cet ouvrage aborde les conflits de mémoire en croisant les champs d’observation de nombreuses dis... more Cet ouvrage aborde les conflits de mémoire en croisant les champs d’observation de nombreuses disciplines (histoire, histoire de l’art, littérature, études visuelles, théâtrales, sciences politiques, etc.) sur des aires géographiques et culturelles variées. Les travaux menés s’intéressent aux pratiques et aux discours mémoriels véhiculés par les arts et par les institutions (musées, célébrations publiques). La majorité des thèmes abordés concerne les conflits de mémoire autour de certains évènements du second XXe siècle et explore les formes les plus contemporaines, encore peu étudiées, d’expression mémorielle.
in Natasha Marie Llorens (éd.), Waiting for Omar Gatlato : A Survey of Algerian Contemporary Art, cat. exh. Wallash Art Gallery, New-York : The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery and Sternberg Press,, 2019
Waiting for Omar Gatlato: A Survey of Contemporary Art from Algeria and Its Diaspora presents the... more Waiting for Omar Gatlato: A Survey of Contemporary Art from Algeria and Its Diaspora presents the work of twenty-five such artists who offer diverse representations of everyday life and are rigorously critical in their engagement with the legacies of Orientalist figuration, modernist abstraction, monumental public art, Conceptual art, and postmodern media theory after 1962, in a postindependence context.
This publication includes the first English translations of texts by key theorists of contemporary art in Algeria on the evolving relationship between art and politics, as well as poetry by Samira Negrouche and a graphic essay by Nawel Louerrad. The book’s title comes from an essay by Wassyla Tamzali on Merzak Allouache’s 1977 film Omar Gatlato.
À l’occasion du cinquantenaire de la fin de la guerre d’indépendance algérienne, des artistes, hé... more À l’occasion du cinquantenaire de la fin de la guerre d’indépendance algérienne, des artistes, héritiers des conflits de mémoires, tant en Algérie qu’en France, convoquent le spectre de cette guerre depuis la France. Ces œuvres porteuses d’une critique sociale projetée sur une histoire du temps présent questionnent les limites des commémorations officielles de 2012 au prisme des représentations artistiques de la guerre d’indépendance algérienne. Certains artistes se confrontent alors à un inventaire critique face à l’histoire et proposent de nouvelles narrations visuelles, chargées du poids d’une historicité portée en héritage. Ces propositions artistiques depuis des documents d’archives du conflit semblent pointer la manière dont certains récits peuvent être enfouis, et mis au silence, par la violence de l’histoire.
English
"Of violence in history. Memoirs, visual arts, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Algerian War of Independence"
On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Algerian War of Independence, some artists, heirs to memoirs that conflict, both in Algeria and in France, convoke the spectre of this war from the viewpoint of France. These visual works, which carry a social critique projected on present time, question the scope of the official commemorations in 2012. Some artists then offer new visual narratives. These artistic proposals, created from archival documents of the conflict, seem to show how certain narratives can be buried, and silenced, by the violence of history.
Dossier de presse, Galerie Poggi, Paris, 2019
Texte pour l'exposition "Djamel Tatah, Vois-là..."
Du 18 mai au 15 juin 2019 à la galerie Poggi,... more Texte pour l'exposition "Djamel Tatah, Vois-là..."
Du 18 mai au 15 juin 2019 à la galerie Poggi, Paris 2e
Dès le 17 mai 2019 au musée des Arts et Métiers
"For the Algerian exhibition L’art au féminin, the curator and art historian Nadira Laggoune has ... more "For the Algerian exhibition L’art au féminin, the curator and art historian Nadira Laggoune has had a few reservations about the types of assignments and the pigeonholing with which women artists hailing from the Maghreb have to deal: “‘Ethnic’ belonging, the fact of being an Arab, rarely avoids the prejudices associated with representation, which often come across through stereotypes to do with the sempiternal issues of religion, social and sexual taboos, and other current substitutes for orientalist imagery. […] This is the worry shared by many of today’s Arab artists who work in Europe and in the West in a general way, and are afraid of a perception of their works that is invariably sullied by exotic curiosity. So they want to be regarded for what they do and not for what they are”.
Recently Frantz Fanon (1925–1961), a major anti-colonialism thinker and an important figure in th... more Recently Frantz Fanon (1925–1961), a major anti-colonialism thinker and an important figure in the Third World movement, has been invoked in the work of contemporary visual artists. Inexorably linked to Algerian independence, the return of the tutelary figure of Blida’s psychiatrist in the visual arts offers the chance to perceive a unique, even renewed, representation of a territory within the prism of its emancipation. Today, whether explicitly represented or subjectively evoked, the omnipresence of the figure of Fanon and his thinking seem to bring new interpretative frameworks to a territory where certain artists question decolonization by the image. The reactivation of this iconic figure by artists leads us to question the value of writings, curiously diminished by our studies of the visual representation of spaces linked to the colonial period.
Nora Greani et Maureen Murphy (dir.), "Avant que la « magie » n’opère. Modernit... more Nora Greani et Maureen Murphy (dir.), "Avant que la « magie » n’opère. Modernités artistiques en Afrique" , journée d’études organisée à l’INHA (Paris, 14 septembre 2015), Paris, site de l’HiCSA, mis en ligne en mai 2017, p. 29-44 : http://hicsa.univ-paris1.fr/page.php?r=133&id=898&lang=fr
Les représentations sexuelles sont omniprésentes dans les figurations de la guerre dite « d’Algér... more Les représentations sexuelles sont omniprésentes dans les figurations de la guerre dite « d’Algérie » côté français, « de libération nationale » côté algérien. Viols, tortures, émasculations, commerce des corps : cet ouvrage, qui mêle histoire, littérature, arts plastiques, anthropologie, psychanalyse et sociologie, interroge le rôle de ces actes dans l’imaginaire du conflit, dans sa mémoire, dans l’organisation de la nation. Il invite ainsi à reconsidérer la question de la violence coloniale.
Plus qu’une étude historique des exactions pendant la guerre,
cet ouvrage se veut une analyse de l’omniprésence de la question sexuelle dans ce conflit, visant à féminiser l’ennemi et surviriliser
le pouvoir.
À travers l’alternance de textes critiques et de fragments fictionnels, apparaît ce que fut cette guerre des sexes, et la politique des genres qui prétendit la réguler et pèse encore sur nous.
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Books by Emilie GOUDAL
Exhibition by Emilie GOUDAL
Group exhibition held from May 16 to July 13, 2024
Ces voix qui m’assiègent [These voices that besiege me…) whose title is borrowed from the writings of Assia Djebar, comprises a compilation of works, images and archives produced in connection with the Algerian decolonisation movement and the country’s feminist struggles, which have spread outward from Algeria like echoes, fragments and the voice of an ongoing struggle for emancipation.
Here, Algeria should not be understood in terms of a country with national borders, a specific history and geographical location, but rather as an epistemological and critical motor capable of revealing the echoes that vibrate at the heart of our visual history.
Papers by Emilie GOUDAL
This publication includes the first English translations of texts by key theorists of contemporary art in Algeria on the evolving relationship between art and politics, as well as poetry by Samira Negrouche and a graphic essay by Nawel Louerrad. The book’s title comes from an essay by Wassyla Tamzali on Merzak Allouache’s 1977 film Omar Gatlato.
English
"Of violence in history. Memoirs, visual arts, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Algerian War of Independence"
On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Algerian War of Independence, some artists, heirs to memoirs that conflict, both in Algeria and in France, convoke the spectre of this war from the viewpoint of France. These visual works, which carry a social critique projected on present time, question the scope of the official commemorations in 2012. Some artists then offer new visual narratives. These artistic proposals, created from archival documents of the conflict, seem to show how certain narratives can be buried, and silenced, by the violence of history.
Du 18 mai au 15 juin 2019 à la galerie Poggi, Paris 2e
Dès le 17 mai 2019 au musée des Arts et Métiers
Plus qu’une étude historique des exactions pendant la guerre, cet ouvrage se veut une analyse de l’omniprésence de la question sexuelle dans ce conflit, visant à féminiser l’ennemi et surviriliser le pouvoir.
À travers l’alternance de textes critiques et de fragments fictionnels, apparaît ce que fut cette guerre des sexes, et la politique des genres qui prétendit la réguler et pèse encore sur nous.
Group exhibition held from May 16 to July 13, 2024
Ces voix qui m’assiègent [These voices that besiege me…) whose title is borrowed from the writings of Assia Djebar, comprises a compilation of works, images and archives produced in connection with the Algerian decolonisation movement and the country’s feminist struggles, which have spread outward from Algeria like echoes, fragments and the voice of an ongoing struggle for emancipation.
Here, Algeria should not be understood in terms of a country with national borders, a specific history and geographical location, but rather as an epistemological and critical motor capable of revealing the echoes that vibrate at the heart of our visual history.
This publication includes the first English translations of texts by key theorists of contemporary art in Algeria on the evolving relationship between art and politics, as well as poetry by Samira Negrouche and a graphic essay by Nawel Louerrad. The book’s title comes from an essay by Wassyla Tamzali on Merzak Allouache’s 1977 film Omar Gatlato.
English
"Of violence in history. Memoirs, visual arts, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Algerian War of Independence"
On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Algerian War of Independence, some artists, heirs to memoirs that conflict, both in Algeria and in France, convoke the spectre of this war from the viewpoint of France. These visual works, which carry a social critique projected on present time, question the scope of the official commemorations in 2012. Some artists then offer new visual narratives. These artistic proposals, created from archival documents of the conflict, seem to show how certain narratives can be buried, and silenced, by the violence of history.
Du 18 mai au 15 juin 2019 à la galerie Poggi, Paris 2e
Dès le 17 mai 2019 au musée des Arts et Métiers
Plus qu’une étude historique des exactions pendant la guerre, cet ouvrage se veut une analyse de l’omniprésence de la question sexuelle dans ce conflit, visant à féminiser l’ennemi et surviriliser le pouvoir.
À travers l’alternance de textes critiques et de fragments fictionnels, apparaît ce que fut cette guerre des sexes, et la politique des genres qui prétendit la réguler et pèse encore sur nous.
obra de un artista, enseguida nos preguntamos cuál es su origen o a qué grupo pertenece. Sin embargo, las obras de muchos jóvenes artistas plásticos en Europa y África cuestionan constantemente los límites
de las particularidades locales para adentrarse en los terrenos, mucho más ambiguos, de la globalización. Artistas como Zineb Sedira, Kader Attia o Adel Abdessemed conciben sus obras como una forma de mostrar las limitaciones de conceptos como la memoria o la identidad, que utilizamos constantemente en nuestra vida cotidiana y aplicamos al mundo artístico.
Inscription
Nicolas Sursock Museum takes as its starting point the question
of the visible and the invisible in museums or in modern
and contemporary collections of the region. It brings together
philosophers, artists, researchers, archivists, art historians and
poets in a series of events inviting the public to a museum forced
to close following the explosion of August 4, 2020.
!e cycle will aim at questioning both, the relation between
the institution and its collection -–what is on display and what
remain in its reserves– as well as museums within context of
protracted crisis forcing them into invisibilities. !us, this series
will be an opportunity to also discuss the cases of the museums
of Baghdad, Damascus, Algiers or Teheran...
We will be looking at the Sursock Museum’s collection, and the
history of its constitution in the face of these problematics, as
well as giving an overview of the future display in preparation
for the reopening. the public will be invited to the Museum’s
behind-the-scene and to learn about the conservation and
restoration of artworks.
Visiting (In)visible Museums will consist of a series of talks,
roundtables, and presentations, as well as a children workshop
and will be an opportunity to discuss the various museum’s
stakes from different perspectives.
Contemporary Echoes: Baya, Inji Efflatoun, and Saloua Raouda Choucair
Study day/7 April 2022
Conference Room - the Maison de la Recherche – University of Lille
Under the direction of Mario Choueiry, Françoise Cohen, and Emilie Goudal
"Baya (Bordj, 1931-1998, Blida), Inji Efflatoun (Cairo, 1924-1989), and Saloua Raouda Choucair (Beirut 1916-2017) were three female artists in the Arab world who could readily be associated with what Stuart Hall identified as ‘the stakes which “the margins” have in modernity, the local-in-the-global, (…) the pioneering of a new cosmopolitan, vernacular, post-national, global sensibility’. In Algeria, Egypt, and Lebanon, these artists produced an oeuvre that was linked to the aesthetic and political debates that took place, and which questioned the contemporary artistic narrative. Pioneers on many fronts, works by these painters and sculptresses, who rubbed shoulders with major figures in the history of art (Picasso, Fernand Léger, etc.) and soon exhibited their work in major international exhibitions (the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, the Galerie Maeght, the Venice Biennale, etc.)are present in public collections, but these artists have for a long time not been included in visible accounts of artistic modernism.
Beyond the ‘mere reactive expression of an indigenous or colonised subjectivity’, looking at these artists, who have now been reintegrated into the interconnected history of twentieth-century art invites us to adopt new historiographical and curatorial approaches. By including previously overlooked artists, these new perspectives question the role of subjectification and the limits of a canonical modernism atavistically linked to the social and political construction of a margin and a centre via a certain genealogy of the world of art and representation, which, apparently, needs to be transcended.
Associated with and beyond the Arab world, this study day aims to explore the critical reactions to these female figures of artistic modernism in recent exhibitions, while taking into account the similarities between their careers and those of other contemporary artists who produce creative work and also transcend the canonical narratives and contemporary classification.
Through new historiographical, curatorial, and artistic approaches, and in support of these three commitments and viewpoints, this day of discussion with researchers, curators, publishers, and artists aims to review the contemporaneity of the issues relating to a third space for dialogue in order to think about other key elements and the possibility of multiple interpretations, to understand discursive contemporary art without attempting to classify it."
A l’occasion de l’accrochage de ces œuvres en boîte arts graphiques, la rencontre sera l’occasion d’interroger la manière dont la guerre d’Algérie est abordée dans les collections de musées et les expositions.
Avec :
- Sarah Ligner, responsable des collections Mondialisation Historique et Contemporaine au musée,
- Anissa Bouayed, historienne, commissaire de plusieurs expositions sur les artistes et la guerre d’Algérie,
- Émilie Goudal, docteure en histoire de l’art, auteur aux Presses du Réel de Des damné(e)s de l’Histoire – Les arts visuels face à la guerre d’Algérie.
- Didier Schulmann, conservateur au Musée national d'art moderne - Bibliothèque Kandinsky
Elle aura lieu le vendredi 16 février à 17h au Centre de la Vieille Charité – Salle le Miroir à Marseille.
Cette conférence voudrait revenir, depuis les indépendances, sur la réception critique et la confrontation à l’œuvre de Picasso par des artistes souvent définis comme « extra-occidentaux », et interroger ainsi le retour d’imaginaires possiblement suscité par l’un des maîtres de l’art moderne.
La conférence sera précédée d’une présentation de l’exposition par les commissaires et en présence de Xavier Rey, directeur des Musées de Marseille.
Journée d'étude organisée par Natacha Yahi, Université de Lille - 1er février 2018
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/art-history/pdfs/events/decolonising-history