Casa Árabe and the Tunisian Embassy in Spain are organizing this conference given by Mohamed Sami Bchir, a professor at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Sousse, in Madrid on Thursday, June 19.
The dialogue between Tunisian art and Al-Andalus culture demonstrates the inter-territorial nature of human heritage and its ability to connect the world in all its diversity. This artistic and cultural convergence highlights the profound influence of Al-Andalus on Tunisia’s artistic identity, exploring its impact from chronological, aesthetic and symbolic perspectives. The interaction between these two worlds goes beyond a mere juxtaposition of elements, also revealing a complex layering in which Arab-Muslim traditions are transformed through contact with modernity.
Indeed, this interconnectedness highlights the depth of the history of Tunisian visual art and the rich and diverse influences to be found therein, from the Orientalist painters who visited Tunisia in the early twentieth century to the great figures in Tunisian art, including Yahia Turki (1902-1969), considered to be the father of modern painting. This event to take a look at the crossroads between Tunisian art and the culture of of Al-Andalus is intended to serve as a refuge for immortalized memory, where the work of art boldly embarks on a relentless battle against oblivion.
Within the framework of the “Country Focus: Tunisia” at Casa Árabe and the exhibition “Tunisian Enlightenments as a backdrop, the goal of the event is to trace the path of an emblematic painting so as to become immersed in its own impulses, where the limited space of the work opens up an infinite field of interpretation.
Mohamed Sami Bchir is a multidisciplinary visual artist from the city of Monastir. With a PhD from the Sorbonne in Art Sciences, Techniques and Aesthetics, he is currently a professor-researcher of Plastic Arts at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Sousse. His practical and theoretical concerns focus on the current territories of painting in the era of contemporary experimentation. In his practice, Mohamed Sami Bchir crosses through several heterogeneous potentials and integrates a certain aesthetics of the unpredictable through his pictorial matter. A former artist-in-residence at the Cité Internationale d’Ars in Paris, he has appeared in several solo and group exhibitions in Tunisia and abroad. He was Artistic President of the fifteenth and sixteenth editions of the International Festival of Fine Arts in Monastir.
Image: Jellal Ben Abdallah
Further information: https://en.casaarabe.es/eventos-arabes/show/tunisian-art-and-culture-of-al-andalus-a-crossroads