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Lot description
Mahjoub BEN BELLA (Algeria, 1946 - Lille, 2020) A vous amour, 1983 Gouache on paper 49 x 42.5 cm on view Signed and dated lower right M Ben Bella 83; dedicated and signed in the middle A vous love - Mahdjoub BB We would like to thank the artist's family for confirming the authenticity of this work and for having it included in the catalog raisonné under reference NB391. "I make the letter dance until its meaning is forgotten, so that it regains its original beauty. Mahjoub Ben Bella, interview with R. Bouzid, Revue Noir, 1992 Mahjoub Ben Bella belongs to that generation of artists trained between Algeria and France, who have made sign and color the foundations of a universal pictorial language. In his 1983 work Avec love, Ben Bella moves away from direct references to Arabic calligraphy to invent an autonomous plastic script. The work unfolds in three chromatic registers in which a free-flowing, rhythmic pseudo-calligraphy runs. This writing says nothing: it sings. It stretches, overlaps and repeats like a visual melody. Through this calligraphy-turned-pure-rhythm, the artist achieves one of the culminating points of his research: to make painting a space of language where cultures meet in light.