MEDI1TV Afrique : De la dérision à la mélancolie avec Yassine Balbzioui - 15/03/2025
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00:00It is with great pleasure that I meet you on Mediantv for this new Escalculture in the heart of Africa.
00:17In a few moments, we will talk about cinema, with Les Invertueuses, the first film by Aisha.
00:24Chloé Boru, a true ode to women and also to love at any age.
00:30We will also talk about art with Alioune Diane, a young painter who became one of the main faces of the African artistic scene.
00:37But not only, because today we will once again talk about art with our guest of the day.
00:43Today, we have the immense pleasure of welcoming a multidisciplinary artist.
00:56We are totally fascinated by his pictorial universe, between neo-expressionism and this touch of unconsciousness.
01:06We have trouble putting a word on his work, his artistic works, his universe.
01:12He is with us to talk about it. Yassine Balbzioui, he is with us. Hello.
01:17Hello.
01:19Thank you for being with us. It is a pleasure to welcome you.
01:25As I was saying, you have a very intriguing artistic universe.
01:31We have trouble putting a word on it because it is dense and complex.
01:41Of course, we are in the feeling, we are in the emotion.
01:44How would you describe your artistic universe?
01:50Hello again.
01:54If I can redefine my artistic universe, it took years and years.
02:03At first, I did not choose the easiest approach.
02:09I will not be pretentious and use the word outsider because it is a word that I do not want to assume too much.
02:23But it all started with my experience as a museum guardian at the Grand Palais in Paris.
02:31This is where my real artistic approach around the mask began.
02:36Because my work is always about masks.
02:39At first, it was something that was related to personal motivations.
02:46Then it became a pretext.
02:48And a pretext because art, for me, must always be linked to a pretext
02:55so that everyone can build their own story.
02:59This way of working, I can say that I am indebted to several collaborations.
03:08Collaborations in Germany, in Italy, etc.
03:14Every time I can use this way of working, I take it.
03:23This is a work called Voyage de Twin Flicks.
03:28It was in Dakar.
03:30I collaborated a lot in Dakar.
03:32I am participating in the next Biennale.
03:35I don't know if it will be in a year.
03:40Because it changed last year.
03:43I am participating with Tram.
03:47I am going to invest all the furniture.
03:49There will be paintings, musicals, etc.
03:54I will leave the surprises for later.
03:56I also have a very strong relationship with Senegal.
04:01This is my second space for experimentation.
04:06I don't know if I answered the question.
04:09But it was a pretext to talk about many things.
04:13It is true that you talked about masks.
04:17It is true that it comes back in your paintings.
04:22A symbol, a flag, a whole meaning behind the use of these masks.
04:31Can you explain to us why the masks?
04:36In fact, by experience.
04:40When you mask something, it is more curious to know what is behind the mask.
04:49I think this little click triggered this obsession.
04:55Even if it is a word.
04:58I found a way to deepen this.
05:05Even because of the masks, when I put the masked characters,
05:10it becomes a pretext.
05:13The exchange is much freer.
05:18When you put things a little frontal,
05:21it is as if sometimes you have nothing more to say.
05:24The mask creates a recreational space
05:27in which the exchange is more fertile,
05:33more intense and more complex.
05:36I don't like ease.
05:40You don't like ease.
05:43You can feel it in your paintings, which are complex.
05:48They appeal to the feeling, to the emotion, to the sensitivity of everyone.
05:53Your paintings, we can say, are vectors of something
06:02that goes beyond emotions, of a reality, sometimes societal.
06:05Something intrinsically human, something very profound.
06:10For you, is art, beyond the emotion of beauty,
06:15of this famous ideal of beauty,
06:19is it also a way for you to convey a reality,
06:24or perhaps even messages?
06:30To answer your question,
06:33it will also allow me to tell you how I work,
06:37my work cuisine, if I can afford it.
06:40I am someone who, once again, I don't look for ease.
06:44Even my first master's, I can look for it in the bookshop,
06:49I can look for it in the archives, I can look for it on a trip,
06:53so there is a physical commitment, etc.
06:56And even if I don't drive, as soon as I take a taxi,
07:00it allows me to have a much fresher temperature of society
07:04and to be a witness.
07:06My paintings, my works,
07:09they are not just a little bit of ornament, of decoration, etc.
07:15I try to bring this testimony of society,
07:19as it becomes complex, as it changes.
07:22And that's important.
07:24My works are a pretext for all that,
07:27for all these layers of complications,
07:29how society develops.
07:32So I'm a witness, let's say a witness.
07:35How society develops,
07:38and it's true that we feel that you are very committed
07:41and that you convey these realities, these truths, through your art.
07:45And precisely, Yacine, what is your news today?
07:51In fact, it's a period like that,
07:53we're going to say, we're going back.
07:56I look at what I did, I look at the archives,
07:59because in the last two years I've done a lot, a lot of exhibitions.
08:02I was in India, I worked with Vain Brodeur in Lucknow.
08:06I did an exhibition in London,
08:08I did an exhibition with Andy Vilpois in Paris, etc.
08:12Now I'm taking a little time to prepare the projects.
08:19But those that are concrete, again,
08:21there is the one in Dakar next year.
08:23And I have an exhibition at the Wagner Museum in Bayreuth,
08:27it's a city near Munich.
08:29So I'm going to invest the space,
08:32because it's still a complex character.
08:35I'm going to do an exhibition
08:38around a poet named Jean-Paul Friedrich.
08:44So I'm doing the drawings for the book,
08:47and at the same time I'm doing an exhibition.
08:49But at the same time,
08:51most of my news changes all the time,
08:57because I'm a worker of art,
09:02I work every day.
09:04And then there are other projects that are really long-term.
09:07Again, I take things in advance.
09:09I'm preparing a big exhibition here in Iran,
09:12which will be held in New York,
09:14which will be held in Limak, which will be held in Colombia,
09:17Germany, France, it will end up in Morocco.
09:19I can't talk about it anymore,
09:21because I'm in the reflection part,
09:25and it's going to be 2027-2028.
09:28So I'm preparing things,
09:30I don't ask questions, I work every day,
09:33but otherwise there are dates that are concretized.
09:38And we'll be in touch.
09:40Thank you very much, Yassine Baldioui,
09:42for being with us.
09:44It was a pleasure to receive you.
09:45Thank you very much.
09:47Goodbye.
09:56And right away in Afrikaan culture,
09:58another artist,
09:59Diane, a young painter,
10:01who has become one of the flagship faces
10:03of the African artistic scene.
10:05And it must be said that he marked Africa's art
10:08with his painting very quickly.
10:11He evokes important societal themes
10:14at the edge of pointillism.
10:16He navigates between abstract and figurative.
10:18After a remarkable exhibition
10:20at the last Dakar Biennale,
10:22he was also selected to represent Senegal
10:24at the next Venice Biennale.
10:26His inspiration?
10:27Childhood, memories, his values of today
10:29and the environment,
10:30with his own means of expression,
10:32figurative, abstract,
10:34a new language that puts in place
10:36a new relationship that is born
10:38simply with the spectator
10:39and that raises multiple questions.
10:43My grandfather played a very, very important role
10:45in this style,
10:46because my name comes from him,
10:49so my first name comes from him.
10:51We were very fusional and very, very close.
10:56And then, when he died, I was in France.
10:59I couldn't go and attend the funerals.
11:02So I started to think about his way of life.
11:07His way of life was to write the Koran,
11:10the Arabic and everything.
11:11And I said to myself,
11:12but without doing it on purpose,
11:15I'm doing the same thing he was doing.
11:18And it's in that sense that I understood
11:21that these gestures that I'm doing
11:24are not to reproduce what he was doing,
11:27but it's a kind of imitation.
11:32In the image of pointillism
11:34of the end of the 19th century,
11:35Ali Houndian offers a lot of abstract symbols,
11:38a colourful calligraphy,
11:40full of mysticism,
11:41in which faces,
11:42silhouettes and scenes of life are drawn.
11:45So since 2013,
11:46the Senegalese painter has flourished
11:48in this movement that he called
11:50Figuro Abstro,
11:52which consists of composing figurative scenes
11:54from abstract elements.
11:56He says,
12:02For me, it's a universal language
12:03that everyone can interpret
12:05as they wish.
12:06In general, my work is instinctive
12:08and I start from a subject
12:10and my signs appear spontaneously
12:12through his work.
12:14Ali Houndian wishes, I quote,
12:16to give a voice to local actors
12:18that we don't see
12:19in stories that are simply killed.
12:21I try to break taboos.
12:23I want to show the Senegalese youth
12:25that we can have a future in Senegal.
12:28To tell these stories,
12:29the painter is very much inspired
12:30by the scenes of life
12:31that he observes in the streets of Senegal
12:33or during his many travels.
12:36Travel and movement,
12:37it's a subject,
12:38it's a theme
12:39that is very important in my life.
12:42And I was thinking,
12:43why not do this exhibition
12:45where I could not only make people travel
12:48in my world,
12:50but also all the scenes of life
12:54that you see in this exhibition,
12:56Touki,
12:57also talk about travel.
12:59For example, the scenes of life
13:00that you see,
13:01the scenes of walking,
13:02these are women who walk
13:04kilometers and kilometers
13:06to sell their products
13:07and to buy their products.
13:09There is also,
13:10on the other side of the diaspora,
13:12the African diaspora,
13:14who are everywhere in the world
13:16and whose only goal is also
13:18to work and help their families.
13:24I wanted to find my own signature
13:27and it was at that moment,
13:29really in 2013,
13:30that I started to say,
13:32but why not write?
13:34Why not draw on my paintings?
13:36Why not make a kind of writing style?
13:40And it came very naturally.
13:43And the idea was
13:44to build figurative images
13:46from abstract elements.
13:51It must be said that the abstract figure
13:53of Alioune Diane
13:54could create a distance between the characters
13:56and the public,
13:57but it rather confers
13:59a promiscuity to the scenes represented
14:02as proof that the whole story
14:04is made up of a myriad of details,
14:06sub-layers,
14:07and elements that aggregate
14:09in order to simply create
14:10the most sincere stories possible.
14:13Since 2022,
14:14following the Dakar final,
14:16the work of Alioune Diane
14:17is part of the Senegal National Collection.
14:19It is a great honour and a pride for me.
14:21This is what Artie says,
14:22I am happy that my work
14:24is presented in a museum
14:26in my own country
14:27and that Senegalese people
14:28can discover it.
14:30I want young people
14:31to have access to culture,
14:32a chance that I did not have
14:34in my youth.
14:35I hope that my journey
14:36will inspire youth in Africa
14:38to pursue their dreams,
14:41because dreams can come true.
14:45When you look closely,
14:46you can see that Africa
14:47and Senegal are evolving.
14:49The streets are changing,
14:51there are new buildings,
14:53so everything is changing.
14:54So I say to myself,
14:55why not,
14:56as a living person,
14:58try to capture these images,
15:01these scenes of life,
15:02which will be later
15:03in the future archives
15:04of Senegal and Africa.
15:07When we talk about a Senegalese
15:09or an African who comes here,
15:11we say that they are immigrants.
15:14And when it is the opposite,
15:16people say that they are expatriates.
15:18For example,
15:19when the French go to Senegal,
15:21they are expatriates.
15:22So I can say that this exhibition
15:24talks about all that.
15:26The fact of travelling,
15:28the fact of being there,
15:29in front of the paintings,
15:30of travelling in my universe,
15:32and this spiritual journey,
15:35and this abstract journey as well.
15:37That is to say,
15:38we can travel without moving,
15:40we can also travel by moving.
15:47And right away,
15:48in Cinema dans l'Afrique,
15:49in culture with the virtuous
15:51of the director Burkina Faso,
15:53Chloé Aicha Boro,
15:54who decided to address
15:56a rather thorny theme
15:59in her work,
16:00the virtuous.
16:01Hawa is a woman of the third age
16:03and widow of a man
16:04she never loved.
16:06Despite the prejudices,
16:07her little daughter Nati
16:09helps her to get closer
16:10to her love of youth,
16:11the only and only man
16:12she has always loved and desired.
16:14For her children,
16:15it is simply a dishonor.
16:16She is a mother,
16:17I quote,
16:18unmerciful.
16:19This is what they judge.
16:20Let's watch an excerpt
16:21from the trailer.
16:23The Jihadists
16:24will take over the city
16:25in a short time.
16:26Let's leave the country,
16:27Miss.
16:28We can't do anything for you anymore.
16:31People of Ouagadougou,
16:34our brothers displaced from Touga,
16:36from Tuna,
16:37and from Sibiu
16:38are in the commune.
16:40The city calls on the solidarity
16:42of each to welcome.
16:45Forgive me, my friend.
16:46You are supposed to teach me life,
16:47and we...
16:55There are the dead and the living.
16:56As long as we are alive,
16:57we are alive.
16:58And I don't see why
16:59she wouldn't have the right.
17:00Because it doesn't exist,
17:01it doesn't happen,
17:02and it doesn't know what to do.
17:03You get it?
17:10You don't know your number?
17:11No.
17:13You don't get involved
17:14in people's affairs.
17:18You are the one
17:19who negotiated all this.
17:21Don't try to lie to me.
17:23I know you.
17:24I know you.
17:28I know you don't want to,
17:30but you will have to respect
17:31all the rituals.
17:35I couldn't leave her,
17:36I couldn't succeed alone
17:37in music
17:38when her father
17:39forced her
17:40to marry this man.
17:42But she stays here.
17:43We will tell her
17:44that she is sick.
17:46Why don't you tell her
17:47that she is a liar?
17:49Tell me
17:50that you want to try yourself.
17:55I don't know who I am.
17:58But...
18:01I suffer when I am defended.
18:04Les Invertueuses
18:05by Chloé Aïcha Boro.
18:07One of the main characters,
18:08Nati,
18:09is a teenager
18:10in the middle of an identity crisis.
18:12She represents
18:13the new generation of women,
18:15the ones who want to break
18:16the chains of their ancestors,
18:17of their grandmothers,
18:18of these women
18:19who can't say
18:20a word
18:21about their identity.
18:22Women who can't
18:23say a word
18:24and who are left
18:25by others
18:26to decide for themselves
18:27in a society
18:28that has,
18:29unfortunately,
18:30infantilized them.
18:31It must be said
18:32that national news
18:33is omnipresent
18:34in Les Invertueuses
18:35of the daily news
18:36about terrorist attacks,
18:37the struggle
18:38against the obscurantist
18:39forces
18:40and the living conditions
18:41of internally displaced people
18:42are themes
18:43that are also
18:44addressed
18:45in this
18:46cinematographic work.
18:47As the director
18:48said,
18:49we wanted to bring
18:50this message
18:51to you
18:52through her words
18:53about the self-determination
18:54of the woman
18:55to decide
18:56about her life,
18:57her ideas
18:58and her body.
18:59In this society
19:00that I love
19:01because I'm Burkina Faso,
19:02you can marry
19:03a 14,
19:0415,
19:0516 or 17-year-old girl
19:06to a 65-year-old man
19:07without it shocking
19:08anyone.
19:09And this same society
19:10says that when a woman
19:11has passed a certain age,
19:12she no longer has the right
19:13to feelings
19:14and desires.
19:15She continued
19:16her speech
19:17by underlining
19:18that the artistic works
19:19that we make
19:20are not empty shells
19:21to entertain.
19:22They are also
19:23vectors
19:24to negotiate
19:25with society.
19:26Unfortunately,
19:27today,
19:28we have a lot
19:29of things to negotiate
19:30with this same society,
19:31the virtuous ones.
19:32Chloé Aïcha Boro
19:33offers us
19:34a superb
19:35first feature film.
19:44And before we leave
19:45in Africa
19:46in culture,
19:47we talk about
19:48the collection of news,
19:49the strangeness
19:50of Mathilde
19:51and other news
19:52that has recently
19:53appeared in the
19:54Gallimard editions
19:55of the Continent Noir
19:56collection.
19:57Gaëlle Octavia
19:58returns with
19:59a new opus,
20:00a first for the author
20:01after the novels.
20:02She is trying
20:03the news.
20:04And as she says,
20:05the ideas of the news
20:06come like this,
20:07without warning.
20:08They arise
20:09as good as they seem.
20:10Some of the texts
20:11placed in this collection
20:12are among
20:13my favorite texts
20:14of everything
20:15I have been able
20:16to write and publish
20:17until today.
20:19I will not say
20:20which ones,
20:21not to influence
20:22the reader,
20:23but I remember
20:24with nostalgia
20:25the moment
20:26between the inspiration
20:27and the writing
20:28of these news.
20:29And by re-reading them
20:30recently,
20:31it seemed to me
20:32that there was
20:33a coherence
20:34between some
20:35of these texts,
20:36a common thread
20:37that justifies
20:38that they are
20:39gathered in a collection.
20:40And in these news,
20:41it is a question
20:42of strangeness,
20:43of situations
20:44and ways
20:45in which the characters
20:46face certain situations.
20:47In general,
20:48women,
20:49ordinary women
20:50who find themselves
20:51either caught
20:52or overlooked,
20:53or struck
20:54by perplexity
20:55towards something
20:56not very common
20:57that happens to them.
20:58Or women
20:59who have
21:00an unexpected reaction,
21:01a reaction
21:02that does not correspond
21:03to the image
21:04we had of them,
21:05especially in the news
21:06that she called
21:07violent heroine.
21:08Here,
21:09it is an ordinary woman,
21:10someone like us,
21:11like thousands of women
21:12around the world
21:13that we meet
21:14in life.
21:15And that is why
21:16she is not named
21:17in the text.
21:18We see her caught
21:19in the constraints
21:20of everyday life
21:21and all of a sudden,
21:22faced with circumstances
21:23that she does not control,
21:24she comes,
21:25she has a kind of access
21:26to violence.
21:27Let's listen to
21:28Gaëlle Octavia right now.
21:31Two hands
21:33laughing
21:35laughing at clowns
21:38laughing at their sticks
21:39of stranglers
21:41projected on the concrete
21:42covering the walls
21:44drawing parallel lines
21:46to the prison stone
21:49partition for a violin
21:51in charge of covering
21:52the cries of the beggars
21:55drawing these lines
21:56from the tip of the fingers
21:58then tasting them
22:00bitter
22:01salty
22:03sweat and blood
22:05then rolling them
22:06in a ball
22:08then lifting them
22:09bravely
22:10right in the middle
22:11of the circle of neon
22:14walking on an incisive
22:17licking the vacant place
22:18on the ginseng
22:20then laughing
22:24tomorrow
22:26tomorrow only
22:27tomorrow
22:28laughing
22:30granted to the persecuted
22:32to the little children
22:33of the exiled
22:35to the beggars
22:36and to the galley
22:37and even
22:38to the artists on the streets
22:40the perpetuity
22:41of a single eye
22:42sufficient for reading
22:44laughing
22:47forgetting all perspective
22:49knocking on the wall
22:51and laughing again
22:53mixing our feet
22:54and laughing again
22:56of our shoelaces
22:58of our beltless trousers
23:01of our bare legs
23:04laughing
23:09and we arrive at the end
23:10of Africa
23:11in culture
23:12thank you
23:13for being with us
23:14and we'll meet again
23:15next week
23:16without fail
23:17see you soon