Algerian Pavilion
The tendency to postpone to the following day the crucial decisions of self-fulfillment and radiance, to have an attitude to dither and to wait voluntarily, all are aspects of the ambient inertia inviting us to reflect on the action that is needed to determine how to make the development and blooming of artists in their society possible. These artists do not get up early until they have to, though often their nights are sleepless. They wake up slowly, however their relevant action illuminates the darkness of human stupidity without ever leaving us indifferent and forgetful. Does this make of them artists unable to be present in contemporaneity? In 1974, I discovered a correspondence from Karl Marx addressed to Arnold Ruge in 1843, one sentence served as a leitmotiv throughout my career « Given that it is not for us to forge a time that is worth all the time in the future, it is all the more certain that what we must do for the present is a critical assessment of all that is, ruthless in the sense that our critics should not fear their own results or conflict with established powers. » Given the many questions to discuss through their work, these artists have a real ability to isolate themselves, to hide from trends the better to grasp scholarly arguments and the meaning of blinding light, or have they kept hidden in the shadow, sheltered from the illumination that would make them shine like a celestial body? Why must they take so much time to react when, for them, it is a question of showing themselves to the light? Do they imagine that they will always have enough time and momentum to jump into the glow, to go beyond the darkening border in order shine once again through their creation of luminous artifacts?
Do these artists persevere to invent their own illumination, as well as to invent the time and the actions necessary to transcend the immobility and inertia that has invaded their cohort and the world around them, which inhabits them and embraces them the way it does a chrysalis ready to hatch? The concept of resilience, defined by neuropsychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik, refers to the resistance that allows individuals affected by trauma to rebuild themselves. The English word resilience comes from the Latin verb resilio, literally meaning to jump back, to bounce and resist in the face of shock and deformation. Should we believe that their bodies truly hurt, that they would bend their spines to metamorphose, and thereby transform and renew the world around them? Inertia makes of them procrastinators, as Stanford University philosopher John Perry suggests in his book The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawning, Lollygagging and Postponing. Nevertheless, a neophyte audience wrongly ignores them, as despite the fact that artists are procrastinating beings, having invented fantasies to avoid doing that which paralyzes their mind and body, they are more productive and creative than others. This is what the philosopher calls structured procrastination to describe them. Is this simply the description of artists often imagined by citizens only capable of conceiving of them as so many inert creatives in the world of the visual arts? Yet, it is these artists who enlighten citizens by their perception and their aesthetic invention of form and of color, thus unfolding the vision with which they confront the world, offering the luminous brilliant Algerian pavilion to us only after the process of chrysalis.
As far as we are concerned, are our artists the creative protagonists of their society and their time? Should they be considered uncommon citizens? This is a chance to illuminate our artists in center stage, in the spotlight, because they can lend an impetus so sorely missed over these last years. They are our avant-garde, our light makers. They are acting with this genius process of resilience, beings who bring the glow to make us shine again in the darkness of the existential emptiness. It is high time for us to sparkle with our light.
