Kamel Yahiaoui

Kamel Yahiaoui, a Kabyle artist born in Algiers, defines himself as an “African artist” of the human condition who is familiar with the issues encountered by artists born on this continent: memory, post-colonial identity,
racism, domination, justice, exile.

“African,” in the same way one would say “Human,”… Kamel Yahiaoui is among the leading artists recognized internationally for the last decade, and he has exhibited his works along with Reyberolles or Ernest Pignon-Ernest, but also Barthélémy Toguo, Soly Cissé, Bruce Clarke (Exhibit: “Des Hommes sans Histoire?”/”Men Without History?”, Musée des Arts Derniers, Paris, 2006), Kader Attia, Samuel Fosso and Yazid Oulab (Exhibit: “Les Afriques Autrement”/”Africas Differently” 2010).

It is through their material that one enters directly into Kamel Yahiaoui’s sculpture-paintings: a material that seems to grow pale, to exhaust itself, to almost disappear. Kamel Yahiaoui’s works are like retinal persistence, marks left on diverse mediums (canvas, diverse objects) by beings who have often disappeared. Between appearance and disappearance, such as old photographs, his works seem to have been attacked by light, point by point.

Love seems to persist in leaving its trace, although subtle, beyond, and in spite of the dramas one can sense. This treasure is conserved beyond the ravages of time, massacres, dictatorships. A declaration of love and of life. A vocabulary today considered “old-fashioned”: Justice, Politics, Freedom’’.