After Stéphanie Solinas in 2015 and Anders Petersen in 2016, the Musée National Eugène Delacroix hosts an exhibit by Mohamed Bourouissa, in collaboration with kamel mennour, Paris/London.
The images in the series Périphérique proceeds from a sedimentation of intentions and meaning. Mohamed Bourouissa focuses on representing youth in the suburban neighborhoods of Paris : La Courneuve, Pantin, Clichy Montfermeil, Argenteuil or the Mirail (attitudes, clothing codes and other identity codes).
Similar to the realism of Larry Clark, with an appreciation for the aesthetic of Jeff Wall or Lorca Di Corcia, and nourished by older pictorial references (Delacroix, Géricault, Caravaggio), the artist deploys an aesthetic strategy which seeks to bring into the realm of art those he feels closest to and who, more often than not, are presented in sad or sensational news headlines. Mohamed Bourouissa seeks to make manifest the premises of an imminent conflict. To do this, he recontextualizes his subjects in the heart of their neighborhoods creating "fake snapshots" with an almost documentary authenticity. Introducing a minute gap between reality and fictional space, he elaborates ambiguous compositions, which play on our beliefs and certainties.
Similar to shooting film scenes, these require precise photographic protocols and, depending on the theme and the chosen background, rely on historical masterpieces by ancient masters. These result in a series of layouts which tend to express relationships of strength and power. The idea - to quote the artist - is to construct a "geometric emotion" the structure of which tells us a story both psychological and sociological.