Galerie Claude Lemand

The MAMA of Algiers, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, is holding the first Retrospective of Mahjoub Ben Bella in Algeria, from 24 May to 30 September 2012. The Galerie Claude Lemand is exhibiting in Paris more than 30 paint­ings, from 1990 to 2011.

Metropolitan Museum. « At nine­teen years old, Mahjoub Ben Bella left Algeria to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Tourcoing, France, then attended the École des Arts Décoratifs and École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He estab­lished him­self inter­na­tion­ally as a diverse and expan­sive artist who paints not only canvas but also ceramic pieces, fab­rics, tiles, walls, everyday objects such as plates, and Métro sta­tions. Ben Bella also uses color to invent a new lan­guage of signs. Working from his uncon­scious, he cre­ates spon­ta­neous images based on instinct and memory. The pro­cess and the resulting art­work there­fore emerge from a trance­like state. His work evokes both Arabic cal­lig­raphy and European abstrac­tion, the signs and sym­bols mate­ri­al­izing out of com­po­si­tion and rhythm. Throughout, the move­ment of let­ters and cal­lig­raphy of sym­bols, tra­di­tional or invented, sig­nify an explo­ration of the senses, of colour, and of form.” (Metropolitan Museum, N. Y.)