Djamel Tatah shows paintings at Bienvenu Steinberg & J

Installation view. Courtesy of Bienvenu Steinberg & J.

By JONATHAN GOODMAN, July 2023 

Djamel Tateh, the son of French-Algerian  parents, paints in the south of France. His somber, melancholic paintings usually depict anonymous persons isolated to the point of desperation. The desolate, if quiet, countenances we meet in these paintings seem more Mediterranean than North African. Most often, the paintings are monochromatic, usually consisting of a cloudless blue. The paintings combine a feature;ess sky and individuals emanating a lack of expressiveness; this suggests a broad alienation rather than the specific difficulties of an ethnic group.  

This show, Tatah’s first in America, presents a painting style he has been working with for some time. His work might just as easily be justified on literary terms as in visual ones–questions of existentialism and unconscious longing, emerging from forces beyond one’s control, come into play in these challenging paintings. 

One work (all the paintings are untitled) from 2018 consists of a man on the left, in a long brown coat, and a woman wearing something similar. As in the first painting described, thin vertical lines highlight the folds in the garment. Both the  man and the woman look to the left with emotionless faces bordering on sadness. There is nothing specific to locate their gaze; their steady vision travels into space. Behind them a light blue-gray sky covers the rest of the composition. It is likely, given the sky’s unobtrusive distance, that its monotone front mimics the emptiness embodied in the faces of the figures.

Djamel Tatah, Untitled, 2012. Oil and wax on canvas, 78.74h x 165.35w in. Courtesy of  Bienvenu Steinberg & J

Because we know Tatah is of Algerian descent, and because we know that  France’s Algerian populace has not been treated well, it would  be easy to force a political reading on his art. Yet the press release speaks of the Mediterranean subjects in Tatah’s work– moreover no  evidence of mistreatment or violence occurs in his tacit scenarios. So the subject matter is less one of ethnic awareness than it is of unspoken disappointments–in the large sense of the word...

Tatah is excellent at suggesting major issues of concern using a minimum of means. This may result from his background as well from an incisive historical awareness of social complexities. It makes sense, of course, to credit his origins as an immigrant as an influence on his art, but the concerns are larger than that, being philosophical and, indeed, universal.

In a 2012 painting, a crowd of similarly dressed people, all of them wearing the dark jacket whose folds are traced by white lines. They stand aimlessly about, without order, looking this way and that. The lack of purpose in their eyes supports the intuition that they are wearing the weight of emptiness. These individuals, perhaps travelers, are close to abjection, and seem to have nothing to do. They appear to be silently troubled about their circumstances. Their pale faces, pallid to the point of being ghostly, are offset by the deep brown and dark reds of the coats. Behind them is a panel of blue sky, cloudless as usual,  flanked on either side by black. What is the purpose behind the group’s meeting? Tatah offers no clues... By painting mysteriously, the artist invests his concerns with the largest import possible.

Djamel Tatah, Untitled, 2018. Oil and wax on canvas 78.74h x 78.74w in. Courtesy of Bienvenu Steinberg & J

In a 2020 work, made with oil and wax, Tatah depicts two figures wearing cowl; the color of their garments is again a dark brown, with white lines detailing the many creases in f their outer clothing. We can see the face of the man on the left, but he is motionless and presents no overt feeling. On the right, the figure’s face is completely hidden by his (or her) hands, turning the scene into a site of pathos and regret.

Tatah’s title for the show, “Solitary Figures,” underscores the mood presented by his art. An uncommunicated grief lies at the center of his ongoing efforts, which evoke sadness without specifying either cause or effect. It can be argued that because Tatah is not giving us information about the people he paints, he leaves his audience in the dark. But that doesn’t matter much. The artist refuses to blame. The persons Tatah depicts are lost in ways we don’t easily understand–they are not delivering a political statement, but a transcendental one. But a darkness prevails; their vicissitudes, implied rather than explained, are something we all share. His understanding is therefore large and unencumbered by any need to judge, even if his message approaches the grim. WM