Choukri Mesli

Choukri Mesli (1931) is one of the “founders” of modern painting in Algérie.

Biography

Choukri Mesli is born on November 8th, 1931 with Tlemcen in a family from intellectuals and musicians. It carries out its first gouaches in 1947 and, of 1948 to 1951, is the pupil of Mohamed Racim at the School of the Art schools of Algiers. It takes part in 1950 in the creation of the review “Sun and founds “Group 51” with young poets and painters whose Kateb Yacine and Me hamed Issiakhem, takes part in the Living room of the Orientalistes. In 1953 it organizes an exposure of the young Algerian painting with Sauveur Galliéro and Louis Nallard in the room of the Municipal credit of Algiers and obtains the first price of the town of Algiers. In 1954 Choukri Mesli between at the School of the Art schools of Paris and carries out the following year its first personal exposure. It exposes in 1956 with the Morrocan Cherkaoui, takes part the following year in the strike of the students while renonçant with any exposure and joined the Morocco in 1960.

Named since 1962 professor of painting at the School of the Art schools of Algiers, Mesli is in 1963 founding member of the National union of the Visual arts (UNAP), of which he is secretary in charge of coordination. He takes part in the many exposures organized by the UNAP in Algeria and abroad. In 1967 Choukri Mesli takes part with Denis Martinez in the creation of the group “Aouchem” (Tattooing) of which it organizes the first exposure. “Aouchem was born millenia ago, on the walls of a cave of Tassili. It continued its existence until our days, sometimes secretly, sometimes openly, according to the fluctuations of the History. (…) We intend to show that, always magic, the sign is stronger than the bombs”, declares their “Proclamation”. In spite of violences, certain plastic traditions succeeded in being maintained in the gestures which model and paint clay, weave wool, decorate the walls, engrave wood or metal: it is on these survivals that “Aouchem” wants to rest. Mesli works in 1969 with the preparation of the Panafrican Festival of Algiers.

Choukri Mesli carries out in 1982 a study trip in the United States where it exposes with a group of African artists. Between 1983 and 1985 it carries out in Algiers a fresco of one hundred square meters and three sculptures, then new personal exposures in 1986 (texts of Malika Bouabdellah, Denis Martinez and Francoise Liassine) and in 1990 ( Palimpseste of Tin Hinan , with a foreword of Rachid Boudjedra. After the wave of assassinations in 1993 of the Algerian intellectuals, Choukri Mesli is constrained with the exile and settles in the Parisian suburbs.

Choukri Mesli takes part in the principal collective exposures of the Algerian painters in Algeria, in the Maghreb and in France: Signs and deserted with Brussels in 1989; Other suns and other signs with Montpellier in 1990; Baya, Larbi, Martinez, Mesli, Silem , with the Gallery Art' 0 of Aubervilliers in 1991; effects of the voyage to the Palate of the Congresses and the Culture of the Mans in 1995; with Denis Martinez in Collegial the Saint-Pierre Muellier, Orleans (with forewords of Benamar Médiene and Rachid Boudjedra) in 1998); Painters of the sign , Festival of Humanity, Courneuve in 1999 (road show); the 20th century in Algerian art , with the Borély Castle of Marseilles and with the Orangery of the Senate of Paris in 2003.

Judgment

“In this geometry of the desire, amalgamate thousand-year-old symbols, re-appear the primitive gestures which decorate and code for magnifier or to call the love, fruitfulness, fidelity, to convene misfortune or the anathema. The love and concern without age guide the hands which trace signs to challenge, glorifier, to protect, attract, have. All-powerful hands of woman which mark out, exaltent, transfigure, establish the direction and the desire. On some of the gouaches the women themselves appear, tattooed to the navel. The woman carrying the alphabet, carrying the capacity. Choukri Mesli places its works under the sign of Chock-Hinan, the woman who orders with the men. On the “palimpsests” (title of the exposure), the dreams, the figures accumulate, overlap, are supplanted. The forms, sometimes, remain embryonic, retract, solidify in the draft. They are exhausted, leaving a secular impression of parchment, low-reliefs with scaled gildings. (...) The woman of Mesli is sensuality, seduction, ease, memory. She incarnates us, prolongs us and multiplies us. She dissipates our anxieties. Why doesn't it have a face? Is this because the face breaks the rate/rhythm of the body, that it cancels the mystery and the dream by fixing an identity? In a table entitled “I am happy”, the woman reveals us his head: a crescent of minaret. It confirms its membership of the dream, it integrates a fairy-like world built by an imagination of child.

Tahar Djaout, Choukri Mesli, Geometrician of the desire , Algeria Topicality, Algiers, 17 May 23rd, 1990

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