Museum of Modern Art of Algiers
14.09 - 06.10.2019 
AlTiba9, curated by Mohamed Benhadj

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Algiers, affectionately known as the MAMA, is one of the most beautiful cultural achievements since the Independence of Algeria. It was inaugurated on December 1st, 2007 by Mrs. Khalida TOUMI, Minister of Culture, for the event "Algiers, Capital of Arab Culture". Built between 1901 and 1909, this majestic five-storey building is one of the jewels of neo-Moorish architecture. 

يعد المتحف الوطني للفن الحديث والمعاصر في الجزائر العاصمة ، المعروف باسم ماما، واحدًا من أجمل الإنجازات الثقافية منذ استقلال الجزائر. تم افتتاحه في 1 ديسمبر 2007 من قبل السيدة خليدة تومي ، وزيرة الثقافة ، لحضور "الجزائر عاصمة الثقافة العربية". بني هذا المبنى الفخم المكون من خمسة طوابق بين عامي 1901 و 1909 ، وهو أحد جواهر العمارة المغاربية الجديدة.

Al-Tiba9 hosts its 7th edition show in Algiers by a shared interest in the importance of the intersections between the Arab world and the western in the field of visual arts, performance and fashion design. The exhibition features 23 internationally established artists and art studios with works on the theme of light as manifestation of energy, paradox and the reconciliation of opposites. It also features selected emerging artists to introduce them to a wider global art scene around the world.

يستضيف "الطباق" معرضه السابع في الجزائر من خلال الاهتمام بأهمية التقاطعات المشتركة بين العالم العربي والغربي في مجال الفنون البصرية, الأداء وتصميم الأزياء. يضم المعرض 23 فنانًا واستوديوهات فنية فنيًا عالميًا مع أعمال حول موضوع الضوء كدليل على الطاقة و المعرفة. كما يضم فنانين ناشئين لتقديمهم الى منصة الفن العالمي

Installation view, Phil Akashi - Museum of Modern Art of Algiers (MAMA) 2019

Phil Akashi's work investigates questions relating to the act of transgression as a powerful tool that allows the liberation of the creative energies.

The artist incorporates multiple layers of languages* from East and West and uses light as a manifestation of spiritual energy. The compositions of Arabic, Chinese and English characters and hues of the artwork are revealed in the presence of ultraviolet light.

By doing so, he engages his audience with a reflection on unlimited tolerance, open-mindedness and positive reasoning. Between visible and invisible, between light and shadow, a new, expanded idea of calligraphy takes shape.

*According to Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, Persian poet and Sufi master, when one recognizes the signs of creation by observing and thinking about it, one sees creation as an expression of divine power, thus reaches the love of God. The further we move away from the true centre of the religious faith, the more differences and controversies emerge. "We are not going East and West, but rather we are constantly traveling to the Sun" Rumi says. Confucius said: 不患人之不己知，患不知人也 / “I will not be afflicted at men’s not knowing me; I will be afflicted that I do not know men”. According to the Master, by getting to know others around us we will be able to improve ourselves. Without others, we are unable to learn about our own self.

Phil Akashi

b. 1978 

Untitled, Hong Kong, 2019

Signed and dated (on the reverse of each part)

Ink and fluorescent spray paint on canvas, without ultraviolet light

160 x 240 cm (2 parts of 80 x 240 cm)

AL-TIBA9 ALGIERS 2019 / STATEMENT

Transgression allows the liberation of the creative energies whose agent is the human. This power of act has been theorized by several thinkers of the Eastern and Western world.

This logic of action is introduced and understood only by the notion of the different levels of reality. It is a logic of complexity and freedom, the transgression of the metaphysical order, which conceived the image as an intermediary between visible and invisible, between body and soul, between here and there.

The great Sufi theorist Ibn Al-Arabi explains that we must see and understand the contradictions and tensions contained in names. It is necessary that the word joins the thing and to perceive the different levels of reality which compose it. It would be a transgression to overcome the limit of the present, to go beyond appearances, to access the hidden reality, the light of the intellect. Ibn Al-Arabi calls these levels the degrees of hierarchy of the being.

According to Rumi, when one recognizes the signs of creation by observing and thinking about it, one sees creation as an expression of divine power, thus reaches the love of God. The further we move away from the true center of the religious faith, the more differences and controversies emerge. "We are not going East and West, but rather we are constantly traveling to the Sun" Rumi says.

And in the verse: "And to Allah belongs the east and the west. So wherever you [might] turn, there is the Face of Allah. Indeed, Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing.” (115) Al-Baqarah, Qoran.

This seventh edition of Al-Tiba9 focuses on light as a manifestation of energy, a principle that makes it possible to reach the phenomenological world, an element of knowledge by getting closer to the center and reach these levels of reality. This transgressive show emerges between lights and shadows, from here and there, reaching for profound hope but staying rooted in reality. These physical, metaphysical and spiritual oxymorons are meeting again this year in the Museum of Modern Art of Algiers (MAMA) featuring internationally established and emerging artists from around the globe.