Djamel Kokene

Within his work, Djamel Kokene explores the tensions between language, thought and representation. Thus, he stages the written word it in many of his works, sometimes associated with objects, always in a strong conceptual stance. By drawing themes from the heart of contemporary society, the artist also readily deals with notions of identity, nationality and community, challenging them with the notions of nomadism and displacement.

Born in Ain El Hamman in Algeria in 1968, Djamel Kokene has been living in France since 1978. He graduated in Fine Arts, Philosophy and Aesthetics (with a cinema specialisation), and Hypermedia - New technologies (MFA, University Paris 8 - St Denis). He also attended classes at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Whilst reflecting the artistic practices, the question of the modes of production and teaching of art, from the beginning of his artistic activity the artist came up with various devices and concepts having a strong evolutionary and mobile dimension: thus since 2000, he has been developing the concept of “Trainee -Artist” as well as “Mobile-School”, successively activated in Algiers, Bourges and Cairo.
In 2002, he initiated the collective structure Laplateforme, a mobile laboratory for reflection and research on contemporary artistic creation of the Mediterranean area, willing to escape the NORTH-SOUTH authority for a dynamics open to the world. In 2006 he started publishing "Checkpoint", a trilingual French-English-Arabic magazine on art and contemporary thinking. 

Very recently, Djamel Kokene presented Nous at the Biennial of contemporary art in Rennes," Ce qui vient" in 2010. He has taken part in La Force de l’Art 02, the contemporary art Triennale in 2009 in Paris as well as "Le porte del Mediterraneo" (doors of the Mediterranean) at the Palazzo del Piozzo Rivoli in Turin in 2008. His work has also been exhibited in Lieu commun in Toulouse and at the Espace de l’Art Concret, Mouans-Sartoux (2007 -2008).