Younes_Baba-Ali_2012.. - Younes Baba-Ali

YounesBaba-Ali
Portfolio Art Works 2012
www.younesbabaali.com
Endind your life under the sun
Installation
Sabrina Amrani Art Gallery
Madrid, 2012
Untitled (Social Landscape)
Installation In-Situ (work in progress)
Galerie Aperto
Montpellier, 2012
Parabole
Installation In-Situ (work in progress),
Arte Contemporanea Gallery,
Brussels, 2011
Call for Prayer - Morse
Sound Installation in public space
Arte Contemporanea Gallery,
Brussels, 2011
Untitled (Landscape)
Installation
Art Space of the Bank “Société
Générale“, Casablanca, 2010
Untitled (Locker)
Mecanic & Sound installation
(work in progress),
Aix-en-Provence, 2010
Tic Nerveux
Video installation
presented to the Art Fair “Kunstart 10“,
Bolzano, 2010 & “Brick + Mortar
International Video Art Festival“
Greenfield, USA, 2009
Hairdryers
Interactive sound installation
presented to the Art Fair “Kunstart 10“,
Bolzano, 2010 & “Desastres Cotidianos“
at “Espacio Menos Uno“ Madrid, 2009
Horn Orchestra
Interactive sound installation
presented to the “De-ci de-là Média“
exhibition, Strasbourg, 2009.
Tv Beug
Video installation presented
to the Biennial of Skopje 09
and “Desastres Cotidianos“
at “Espacio Menos Uno“
Madrid, 2009
Sound Neon
Interactive sound installation
presented to the 3rd “AIM Biennial of
Marrakesh“, to the 13th New Media Art
Biennial “Wro 09“, Wroclaw Poland, and
the Interactif and Sound Art Festival
“In-Sonora IV“, Madrid.
Beug#01
Video, 1’11’’, 2009
Selected for the FIAV 09, Catania.
Seleced for the Dvd Project, presented
in Loop Video Art Festival, Barcelona;
Noche Blanca, Burgos; Syndicat
Potentiel, Strasbourg.
Sound Fabric
Interactive sound installation
presented to the exhibition “Interference“
Breda, 2009
Sound Canvas
Interactive sound installation
presented to the Interactif and Sound Art
Festival “In-Sonora IV“, Madrid.
Sound Painting
Sound installation
presented to the Interactif and Sound
Art Festival “In-Sonora IV“, Madrid.
Sound Armchair
Sound installation
presented to the gallery of
Fine Art School of Strasbourg, 2008.
Difference
Video installation
presented to the Wro Art Center
Wroclaw, Poland 2008
Intrusion
Video of the performance “Intusion“
in collaboration with Joël Curtz,
Paris, 2008.
Lyfk
Sound performance
presented to the gallery of
Fine Art School of Strasbourg, 2007.
Time*
Video installation
presented to the gallery of
Fine Art School of Strasbourg, 2007.
Biographie de Younes Baba-Ali
Né en 1986 à Oujda, au Maroc, Younes Baba-Ali vit dès le plus jeune âge à Nantes, où Il fut initié à la création artistique par l’artiste polonais Ryc’ho Swierad Ryszard. Après ses études de graphisme à Nantes, il entame ensuite son cursus à l’Ecole Supérieur des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg, où il obtient son Diplôme National d’Art Plastique avec mention en 2008. Entre 2006 et 2008, il participe a divers
événements artistique à Strasbourg, tel que l’exposition collective “3 days exhibition concept“ organisée par Frank Bragigand au CEAAC.
Par la suite, il réalise un séjour de 6 mois à Wroclaw, en Pologne, qui lui permit de travailler avec le centre d’Art des nouveaux Médias “Wro
Art Center“ où il y réalisa l’installation vidéo intituler “Différence“. Il fût ainsi invité par la curatrice polonaise Dorota Hartwitch dans ce même
centre, pour une résidence de 3 mois qui lui permit de créer l’installation sonore “Horn Orchestra“ et de participer à la biennale “WRO 09“
avec l’installation “Sound Neon“. Depuis 2008 il participe à plusieurs expositions et biennales internationales, comme la Biennale “Art In
Marrakech“; la BJCEM Biennale de Skopje, Macedoine; Sketch Gallery, Londres; “FIAV 09“, Catania, Sicile; “Brick+Mortar International
Video Art Festival“, Greenfield, USA; “Espacio Menos Uno“, Madrid; “Loop Video Art Festival“, Barcelone; “Interference“, Breda, Hollande;
CEAAC, Strasbourg; “In-Sonora Sound Art Festival“, Madrid and “La Galerie du Syndicat Potentiel“, Strasbourg. Actuellement il vit et travail
entre Marseille et Casablanca.
Texte de Présentation de Younes Baba-Ali
D’origine marocaine, Younes Baba-Ali vit en France depuis son enfance. Après des débuts essentiellement axés sur des pratiques de photographie, de peinture et de dessin, ce jeune artiste pluridisciplinaire a élargi son champ d’investigation et construit à présent son travail
sur des jeux de passage entre multiples propositions, témoignant d’une production qui se soucie peu des genres. Sa pratique se situe en
effet, autant dans la mise en place d’interventions, à la fois simples et élémentaires, que dans la décontextualisation d’objets, ou dans la
réalisation d’installations beaucoup plus sophistiquées.
L’artiste joue avec les codes de monstration de l’oeuvre et les contourne, juxtaposant à la question de la nature et du statut de l’objet, une
réflexion sur les rapports entretenus entre l’art et son public mais aussi entre l’art et l’institution muséale. Dans ce contexte, Younes BabaAli cherche à s’éloigner d’une vision globale de l’art qu’il définit lui-même comme « sacrée », en incitant le public à établir un contact direct
avec l’œuvre, action généralement compromise dans le musée ou la galerie. A ce propos, c’est d’ailleurs l’usage que l’artiste fait du son
qui pourra nous interpeller dans cette démarche. Depuis la réalisation de ses premières installations en 2008, Younes Baba-Ali semble
avoir trouvé, à travers ce médium, un espace nécessaire à sa pratique artistique. Selon le jeune artiste, la force du son se situe dans son
immatérialité car elle porte en elle une capacité à se propager dans l’espace, permettant de mettre en place une interaction brute et directe
entre la pièce présentée et son public, la condition Sine qua none à l’existence de l’œuvre elle-même.
Au-delà de ce point de départ, situé dans un regard critique porté sur l’art, ce qu’il peut signifier et représenter mais aussi sur la position de
l’artiste, Younes Baba-Ali nous livre surtout, et non sans une certaine ironie, ses pensées. Celles-ci abondent, fourmillent, et permettent, via
le geste artistique, de rendre compte du monde extérieur, de générer de nouvelles productions abordant des thèmes universels : le monde,
la vie sociale, la politique. Aussi, si le travail de l’artiste se voit marqué par la diversité voire la divergence des formes, il s’agit toujours de
se situer au point d’équilibre entre l’urgence de messages à transmettre et une certaine volonté stylistique.
Les éléments autobiographiques construisent également son œuvre, notamment par le biais de problématiques directement liées à la culture et à la société maghrébines: autant de questionnements à mettre en parallèle avec son pays d’origine et qui de manière sous-jacente et
subtiles, font écho à l’immigration, la ghettoïsation des communautés, leur intégration ainsi qu’à une quête certaine de l’identité.
Justine Ollitrault, septembre 2010.
Critic by the Polish Curator Dorota Hartwitch
‘Difference’, 2008
‘Call for Pray’, 2008
‘Sound Neon’, 2008
‘Time*’, 2007
What is most intriguing of Younes Baba-Ali’s work, is the contrast between an assumed constraint of available means, a willingly limited
scope of action, and the artist’s ability to open up a space where to place works of a very different character – some of them being elementary and simple, others playful or very sophisticated, though always concerning fundamental metaphysical questions. Whatever the variety,
none is empty, a thoughtful mind is always behind.
The artist’s research is wide-ranging: it takes issue with Time, with changes time brings about and with its exhaustion, as well as with the
twofold face – creative and destructive – of the Difference, with the trivialization of intimacy and the sacred (Call for Pray), the medias’ omnipotence (TV Beug), the semantics of everyday objects (Sound Neon, Hairdryers). Universal topics, then, intertwine with matters of a social
nature; but what seems to be most important – in fact, unavoidable at the start of the artistic venture – is the presence of self-referential
statements. Younes Baba-Ali most probably excels in works like the Sound Canvas or the Sound Painting, as they embody an unusually
optimal balance: between intellectual content and aesthetic shape, on one hand; and between detachment and irony, on the other. The
latter being of priceless value, when provided in the right proportion.
Dorotha Hartwich
Dorotha Hartwich is a journalist and art critic, the author of many publications in newspapers and magazines including «Format», «Odra», «Art & Business», «Gazeta
Antykwaryczna», «Sztuka.pl», «Rzeczpospolita», «Tygodnik Powszechny». Since 2006, she cooperates as an independent curator with WRO Art Center (Poland). Is
member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA).
Younes Baba-Ali: Saatchi Online Critic’s Choice
by Constance Gounod
Younes Baba-Ali’s sound installations demand to be heard before they remain to be seen. Graduating from the Fine Art School of Strasbourg
in 2008, he naturally developed an affinity for sound and its propagation within space. In all of his work, Baba-Ali seeks to directly confront
the visitor to its haunting presence, turning him into a participant of the piece and making him reconsider previously familiar objects.
In ‘TV Beug’ (2009), the visitor walks into a dark room where a flat screen television, which once epitomized the perfect touch of cool urban
high life, sits on a plinth prompted against a wall. While the screen is close enough to reflect psychophrenic like flashes of light opposite, it
not quite far enough to see what’s actually showing. The sound emitted however is loud and undecipherable and prompts the viewer to feel
both paranoid and ill at ease.
«Sound takes on an important role in my work because its capacity to propagate in space, to pierce through the soul and integrate the body
of visitors. It also enables to give pieces a sense of memory close the creative process.»
In ‘Secadores’ (2009), a power unit sits in the corner of a room connected to six hairdryers, which emit irregular exhaustive sounds of hot
air blowing. Recaling Olafur Eliasson’s ventilator piece, these machines are left desolate on the ground, like discontent little plastic reptiles,
to move wherever their power takes them within the radius of their own wire, warning the viewer not to get too close, just in case these
might turn into something else. Both works were created for a group exhibition ‘Desastres Cotidianos’ at Espacio Menos Uno in Madrid in
June 2009.
Younes Baba-Ali was born in Oujda, Morocco but has lived in Nantes, France, since he was a child. He recently graduated from the Ecole
Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg, and has already widely exhibited throughout Europe in France, Spain and Poland. He recently took part in the BJCEM Biennial of Skopje, in Macedonia in 2009 and will participate in the3rd Arts in Marrakesh Biennial in Morocco,
from 20 November2009 to 20 January 2010.
Constance Gounod
Published on 28-09-2009 on www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk
Constance Gounod is a French born New Yorker now based in London. She has worked in contemporary art galleries and museums in both Europe and America,
including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and the Hayward in London. After graduating from Goldsmiths with an MA in Contemporary Art Theory in 2006,
she has since worked as an Editorial Assistant for the Oxford Art Journal and Graduate Trainee at Phaidon Press.
Younes Baba-Ali: Critic for 967arte, Art Magazine
by Queralt Lencinas
The «artwork» is understood as an object with structural properties that allow, but coordinate, the alternative of interpretations,
the displacement of perspectives.
Umberto Eco «The open work»
Interactivity, represented with the diagram of user <-> interface <-> machine, takes part in different aspects of contemporary society, where
the 2.0 paradigm has invaded many ambits, contemporary art included. The active viewer, in opposition to the contemplative, is a product of
the art nowadays; in some way, along these last decades the viewer has obtained responsibility over the artistic experience or the meeting
with the artwork; because it is the artist who propose an action field, but it is the other who has the chance to decide what could happend
among all the possibilities projected from the piece.
The question of the relation between the artwork and the viewer is an important element inside Younes Baba-Alí’s work; this interest of the
artist is translated as a repertoire of interactive artworks in which the subject or participant is invited to research inside the mechanism of
the piece. «Horn Orchestra» is one of these pieces-instruments; it is conformed by an ensemble of horns that react making an aleatory
composition; however it is possible to appreciate a kind of rhythm or melody in some moments. Also it is a good example the piece «Sound
fabric», a huge black cube made of fabric which resembles to the minimalist sculptures where the body becomes present in relation with
the space, although in this case a direct contact with the surface of the object is required in order to dialog with it. The installation «Sound
neon» is another interesting piece triggered through the presence and the movement of the body; in this case several neon lights are placed
in some points of the room; they turn on and off transforming the space through light and sound.
Common materials, smashed machines, uncovered devices are some of the resources of the artist for the most of his works where the
sound is a principal component. It is a research of the possibilities of the relation between the user-viewer and the instrument-piece. BabaAli sais that this one cannot exist without the first one; so the responsibility of the public is a fact. This responsibility is more about the artistic
process than the simple interaction obtained from the action -> reaction.
Queralt Lencinas