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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Politics of Belonging in Algerian Art: Denis Martinez's 7 Murs Revistés, 1989

The Politics of Belonging in Algerian Art: Denis Martinez's 7 Murs Revistés, 1989

J. Becker, Cynthia

Paperback

Series: Anthem Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran and Turkey, Book 1

African ArtIndividual ArtistsMiddle Eastern Art

PREORDER - Expected ship date December 1, 2026

ISBN10: 1839998342
ISBN13: 9781839998348
Publisher: Anthem Press
Published: Dec 1 2026
Pages: 100
Weight: 1.00
Height: 0.50 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

Investigates how Denis Martinez's art, particularly 7 murs revisités (1989), draws on Amazigh art and other marginalized visual forms to articulate alternative forms of belonging and inclusion in postcolonial Algeria.

Denis Martinez's 7 murs revisités (1989) was exhibited in the Kabyle region of Algeria, far from the institutional and political center of Algiers. The series consists of seven monumental canvases, each measuring approximately 200 × 300 cm, which rework Kabyle domestic wall painting into expansive pictorial fields animated by dense patterning and an anguished human figure emerging from a portal-like form. Installed in a communal setting, the exhibition fostered conviviality, dialogue, and cultural affirmation at a moment of intensifying political repression. By the late 1980s, the Kabyle house had become a charged reference within broader debates over national culture, as the Algerian state increasingly emphasized Arab-centered frameworks of identity. The works were never acquired by a museum and were later damaged by water after Martinez fled Algeria in 1993 amid the outbreak of civil war, underscoring their precarious position within both institutional and political histories.
7 murs revisités serves as the central focal point of this book, offering a lens through which to examine how visual culture articulated alternative models of belonging during a period of profound uncertainty. This study situates Martinez's artistic career within debates over cultural legitimacy and social recognition in postcolonial Algeria. As an Algerian of Spanish ancestry, Martinez was acutely aware of the plural histories that historically shaped the country. In the decades following independence, multiple and competing modernist practices emerged, each negotiating the relationship between culture, politics, and national identity. Martinez's engagement with Amazigh and other marginalized visual and symbolic forms in 7 murs revisités must be understood within this broader effort to articulate a conception of Algerian identity grounded in cultural recognition and inclusion.

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