After more than three decades devoted to intercultural mediation, Brahim Alaoui looks back on his encounters with Arab artists, in their homes or in exile. He thus provides a field knowledge and a sensitive look at the work of a generation of modern artists, often trained in post-war Europe, who, once back in their country, begin to reflect on their identity and elaborate their postcolonial modernity.
It then presents a selection of contemporary artists who, at the turn of the twenty-first century, have broken free from the classical paths of representation, explore new mediums and make an original contribution to the global dynamic of international artistic connection and interaction. Through fifty portraits, the history of art and the debates of ideas that cross the Arab world from the Nahda (renaissance) to the present day intersect, with its utopias, tragedies, resiliencies and hopes.