Tunisia: Turbulences

Faiza Ben Hadj Yahia - Untitled (2014)

The philosophy of Imago Mundi is the inevitable consequence of this same passion, the desire to make all the artists of this world known to everybody offering everyone the same opportunities, the same support and the same space and above all canvases of the same size. Ten centimeters by twelve, a reduced format, which obliges the artists, famous or not, to adapt to the same constraints, to focus on the same space and express themselves while staying within the same measurements imposed for all.

Michela Margherita Sarti - Manipolazione I (2013)



Ten by twelve is an unusual format and as uncertain as the Tunisia of today. It is neither a country entirely in revolt nor entirely peaceful, neither completely secular nor wholly Islamic, neither entirely feminist nor completely chauvinist. How can one ask more than two hundred artists of all ages, from the oldest to the youngest, to put on canvas, wood, glass or iron, their hopes and their despair, their anxieties, their courage, their joys and their tears, their dreams and their nightmares, essentially all of these ‘intimate turbulences’ on an area of just ten centimeters by twelve?

Omar Bey - Untitled (2014)

Leaving Luciano Benetton’s magnificent palace in Ponzano, Italy, I said to myself that the artists would never be able to realize this project. The Tunisian revolution had just turned three years old and artists had many things to say, to write, to draw. Locking them in a format that was so small was to imprison them, limit them, depriving them of the greatness and power of this political, social and cultural revolution that they had just experienced, which had disrupted their vision and freed their artistic expression thanks to the assuagement of censorship.

Slim Med Drissi - Untitled (2014)

Over two hundred artists agreed to participate in this project and none of them felt limited by this format. They found, on the contrary, that the small size forced them to concentrate, to go to the essentials, to play between the recreational and the dramatic, between poetry and caricature, to resize the subjects and think of the harmony of colors. They also spilled over the back of the canvas where they poured a little more of their talent. Some of them, seduced by the format, have created several works and have imagined forms through which to expose them, others have proposed to repeat the experience in the future. No one complained. Rather, the opposite.

Nebras Charfi - The Flayed (2013)



If I called my preface of this exhibition, ‘Turbulences’, it is because today we are in a period of political and social transition in which artists have responded freely with their moods and their works do not have particular similarities or ties with each other, except perhaps a feeling, a whiff of concern about the future of Tunisia. The artists sense that the future looks uncertain and mysterious, but do not let themselves go to despair, and have emphasized the aspect of humor, black humor, fierce against themselves and against the politicians who govern us. One positive outburst that results in often hilarious works that sometimes get to being absurd. The practice of the small size is not alien to the Islamic-Muslim culture: sublime Persian miniatures in the sumptuously decorated pages of the sacred books, compositions of semi-precious stones to form flowers and leaves on the huge domes of mosques. The small and medium sizes have always existed. This style appeared quite natural to Tunisian artists and, surprisingly, they found pleasure in trying to renew their artistic past.

Mehdi Bouanani (Dabro) - Lamine Bey (2013)



But there’s more: this popular revolution with the change of political regime and the adoption of a new constitution in Tunisia have introduced a new world in which they quickly imposed freedom of speech and freedom of expression. The artists of all persuasions appropriated this so desired space, and soon creativity and imagination exploded in dozens of exhibitions. The graffiti artists, who had been prevented from expressing themselves, painted on the walls, on bridges, on abandoned houses from the old regime; rappers have occupied theaters; caricaturists were unleashed against the faces of the new politicians. Tunisia lived the euphoria of freedom. The small size of Luciano Benetton has become an aspect of the freedom of artistic creation within which everything was allowed.

Semia Achour - Caterpillar (2013)

It is not the first time in history that the Tunisian artists are conquering freedoms thanks to the events. In the Muslim tradition any depiction of the human is prohibited and in a hadith (TN: The hadith is an anecdote or story about the life of Muhammad) of the life of the Prophet Muhammad, it is said that Islam does not tolerate the reproduction of the human figure. At the end of the 19th century, Tunisia was freed from this prohibition and the Tunisian artists began to draw human faces and landscapes and their canvases have experienced some success both in Tunisia and abroad. From the middle of the 20th century on, our artists have exhibited at the Venice Biennale, in the USA and in Paris, which explains the large number of talented artists in a country that is among the smallest in Africa.