From Paris to Algiers, Mediterranean Art Deco ?

As part of the Art Deco Year, and reflecting its mission to foster connections between cultures, the Boghossian Foundation is delighted to welcome Vincent du Chazaud and Philippe Rivoirard for a lecture exploring the history and influence of this movement in Algeria and around the world.

Art Deco emerged in the wake of Art Nouveau in the 1920s. The movement had its origins in the decorative arts, which came to the fore at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925. At the height of the Roaring Twenties, artistic creation was dazzling. Architects, decorators, painters, sculptors, metalworkers and other craftsmen joined forces to design pavilions with richly decorated interiors. A bridge between the exuberant ornamentation of Art Nouveau and the formal rigour of the Modern Movement, Art Deco imposed an elegant aesthetic, adopting symmetry in architecture and geometry in decoration, emphasising purity of line and sophistication of detail. Art Deco accompanied the development of modernity, transport (stations and transatlantic ferries), sports facilities, culture (swimming pools, cinemas, libraries, museums) and worship (churches). Alongside regionalism, Art Deco also played a part in the reconstruction of the devastated areas of northern and eastern France after the First World War.

The period between the wars was also a time when the colonies were showcased, with the feeling that the civilising work of colonisation was well-founded, culminating in the 1931 Colonial Exhibition in Paris. It was at this exhibition that the Palais de la Porte-Dorée was built by the architect Albert Laprade, with the help of a number of artists, including the sculptor Alfred Janniot, who created the monumental fresco carved in stone that covers the entire main façade. As ambassadors for France, at the height of its victory in the Great War and its colonial conquests, the figures of French decorative art were put to good use by the Third Republic. They spread to North Africa, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, as well as Indochina. For foreign countries in Europe and America, the Paris Exhibition in 1925 was a revelation, particularly for representatives of the United States, whose architects and decorators appropriated the style. Art Deco had definitively seduced the world.