LONDON.- Gerald Moore Gallery is presenting Tolerance, an exhibition by Patrick Altes, curated by Middle Eastern art specialist Janet Rady (formerly of Sotheby’s and Lisson Gallery).
Born in colonised Algeria and having lived in many countries - including South Africa under apartheid – before settling in Britain in 2006, international artist Patrick Altes’s work is deeply informed by his own personal history and the diasporic experiences that have both defined his identity and fuelled his artistic exploration.
A leading light in the emerging Franco-Algerian art movement, Altes’s first-hand experience of unjust, brutal and discriminatory societies fuelled a sense for the politically, socially and humanly acceptable which has become a thematic concern visible in all his creative work.
With perilous journeys depositing migrants on European – and now, British - shores, Altes turns his attention to the harrowing circumstances that increasingly accompany migration and resettlement.
In this timely, major exhibition, Altes confronts negative cultural stereotypes and advocates for tolerance and respect in times of angst, division and separatism. Supported by the Arts Council, this exhibition encompasses outreach and public engagement activities encouraging pupils, students and participating members of the public to reflect on our values and ideas– bringing concepts such as the rule of law, diversity, democracy and individual liberty into the conversation.
Altes has created several installation pieces for this exhibition, together with new digital collages, posters and paintings, often involving the layering process that has become a hallmark of his work.
From the onset, Patrick Altes strikes you with his empathy, his intelligence, his creativity as well as his artistic proficiency. His engagement with memory takes its roots in his early life in North Africa and has influenced a complex visual language that powerfully serves its purpose. His current creations elicit strong powerful sweeping emotions in the viewer. Karim Sergoua. Curator 3rd Mediterranean Biennale of Contemporary Art, Oran.
Altes is an artist of French/Spanish origins, whose work has been deeply informed by his own personal history. Born in Algeria, he has made a distinctive contribution to the postcolonial discourse and the emerging Franco-Algerian art movement. As a young adult, he lived in South Africa for two years under the apartheid. He was working at the University of Fort Hare, a key institution in higher education for black Africans, which counted among its former students a number of prominent leading opponents of the apartheid. This was his first-hand experience of a society based on discrimination, repression and deprivation of civil and political rights for a large part of the population. It deeply marked him and fuelled in him a sense for the politically, socially and humanly acceptable. He is interested in the evolving relationship between the contemporary world and our deeper humanity.
He was twice recipient of the prestigious Leverhulme Trust Award. He co-curated Algerianism 1, as part of the pan-Arabic Nour Festival in London’s Kensington and Chelsea (2015). He also participated in the 3rd Biennale of Mediterranean Contemporary Arts in Oran, Algeria (2014), Art Bahrain (2015), the 7th International Festival of Contemporary Arts (FIAC) at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Arts in Algiers (2015), and Art 16 London (2016) and the 4th Biennale of Mediterranean Contemporary Art in Oran (2017). He has works in the Museum of Modern Arts of Oran (MAMO), and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Arts of Algiers (MAMA).
