Galerie Claude Lemand

TRIBUTE OF ARTISTS TO NOTRE-DAME.

 Nasser AL-ASWADI (Yemen, 1978 - France)
 Dia AL-AZZAWI (Iraq, 1939 - United Kingdom)
 Boutros AL-MAARI (Syrie, 1968 - Germany)
 Manabu KOCHI (Japan, 1954 - France)
 Mohamed LEKLETI (Morocco, 1965 - France)
 Najia MEHADJI (France-Morocco, 1950)
 Hussein TAÏ (Iraq, 1966 - Denmark)
 Khaled TAKRETI (Syria, 1964 - France)
 Hani ZUROB (Palestine, 1976 - France)
___

Claude Lemand. Witnessing the lumi­nous face of the Arab World.

Like mil­lions of viewers, I was over­come with emo­tion by the spec­tacle of the fire which rav­aged the emblem­atic Notre-Dame de Paris cathe­dral, awak­ening in me the painful memory of the start of the Lebanese war, during which I had been kid­napped and then injured. The radio and TV inter­ven­tions of Jack Lang, an eye­wit­ness to the fire at the top of the ter­race of the Jean Nouvel building which over­looks Notre-Dame, encour­aged me to trans­form my emo­tion and my sad­ness into a pos­i­tive and gen­erous pro­ject, in the spirit of the dona­tion we had just made to the museum of the Institute of the Arab World in Paris.

The next day, and in agree­ment with President Jack Lang, I called around ten artists to whom I felt close and who were well rep­re­sented in our dona­tion to the IMA museum. These artists were all very impressed by the fire of an almost thou­sand-year-old building, a symbol of French, European and uni­versal her­itage, which they knew well and of which they felt as much the heirs as French and European artists. My call awak­ened in them the enchanted mem­o­ries of their reading of Victor Hugo’s novel (title in Arabic: Ahdab Notre-Dame - The Hunchback of N-D) and those of their first visit to the cathe­dral upon their arrival in Paris.

Nine artists saw their works exhib­ited in a space of the museum facing Notre-Dame, the archi­tect Jean Nouvel having ori­ented his building towards the cathe­dral. They were all ani­mated by the same spirit of uni­ver­salism and freedom, the one exuded by the Claude & France Lemand col­lec­tion. The IMA web­site had pub­lished their works and their com­ments: Najia Mehadji (France-Morocco), Mohamed Leketi (Morocco-France), Boutros Al-Maari (Syria-Germany), Dia Al-Azzawi (Iraq-United Kingdom), Manabu Kochi (Japan-France), Hani Zurob (Palestine-France), Hussein Taï (Iraq-Denmark), Khaled Takreti (Lebanon-France), Nasser Al-Aswadi (Yemen-France).

It is a real plea­sure for me to wit­ness the moti­va­tion of cer­tain artists from the Arab World and the dias­poras to create a per­sonal work which expresses their empathy, the dia­logue of the Arts and uni­versal values between East and West. Happiness that I wish to share with the vast public of vis­i­tors to the museum, facing Notre-Dame. These con­tem­po­rary works will give the Arab world and its dias­poras a much more pos­i­tive, lumi­nous and uni­versal image than the images of despo­tism, terror and obscu­ran­tism which sow the death of minds and bodies in Arab coun­tries and every­where else in the world.