The popular districts of Tunis and the persecution of militant families are starting points for NIDHAL CHAMEKH (Tunisia, 1985) creations, at the intersections of the biographic and the political, the lived and the historical, the event and the archive. From drawing to installation, from photography to video, his works dissect the constitution of contemporary identity. He graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Tunis and the Sorbonne University in Paris and his work has been exhibited at the 56th Venice Biennale, Italy, the Aichi Triennial, Japan, the Yinchuan Biennale, China, and the Dakar Biennale, Senegal, as well as at the Politics Collective exhibitions (Tunis), the Arab World Institute (Paris), FM Contemporary Art Center (Italy) and Art Basel (Switzerland), among others.
NEVER GIVE UP (2017). Following the dismantling of a camp,ordered by the Pas-de-Calais prefecture in March 2016, a group of refugees is forced to abandon the community they built and invented. As an act of resistance they set fire to their makeshift dwellings before the heavy equipment moves in for demolition. As one of the houses is consumed by fire and the walls begin to collapse, a sentence appears –“Never give up” –in a video marked by the sound of wind and flames, the dark smoke and the implicit or explicit presence of the French police.
DE QUOI RÊVENT LES MARTYRS II (2012-2013). Drawing is the basis of art. The work of art is always preceded by a sketch, composing a discrete layer concealed behind the painting, sculpture, video or installation without ever falling into oblivion. It is in seeking for such a foundation that Nidhal Chamekh’s drawings are established around the figure of the martyr, pictorial constructions in which dreams about life and dreams about death seem to blend into one and the same dimension.
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