Culture of Algeria
Under Umayyad rule, Musa ibn Nusayr continued the program of spreading Islam and the Arabic language through missionary activity and chose seventeen religious scholars to convert the locals.
Since independence after the Algerian War, regimes have sought to develop an Islamic Arab socialist state, and a cabinet-level ministry acts for the government in religious affairs.
President Houari Boumédiene sought to increase Islamic awareness and to reduce Western influence, although the rights of non-Muslims continued to be respected.
Algerian clothing, influenced by the country's rich history and cultural heritage, varies among different regions and communities in Algeria.
Most Algerians follow Islamic dress codes, and foreigners are expected to show modesty, such as female visitors having to avoid exposing their shoulders, knees or chest.
The haik is a large rectangular piece of fabric, usually made of wool or cotton, which covers the body and is wrapped around the head as a hood.
Well-known poets in modern Algeria are Moufdi Zakaria, Mohammed Al Aid, Achour Fenni, Amar Meriech, and Azrag Omar.
Famous novelists of the 20th century include Mohammed Dib, Albert Camus, Kateb Yacine, Ahlam Mosteghanemi, and Assia Djebar.
Among the important novelists of the 1980s were Rachid Mimouni, later vice-president of Amnesty International, and Tahar Djaout, murdered by an Islamist group in 1993 for his secularist views.
Within Algeria, raï remains the most popular musical form, but older generations tend to prefer shaabi, performed by singers such as Dahmane El Harrachi.
Although raï is now generally welcomed and praised as a cultural emblem of Algeria, in the post-independence period the form was often attacked or criticised by Islamic and government authorities.
These attitudes began to change around 1985, partially due to the influence of Colonel Snoussi, an ex-military officer turned raï artist.
[15] Another reason for the shift in attitude toward raï was the music's growing popularity in France, which the Algerian government viewed as positive.
[17] During the first half of the twentieth century, artists mainly recuperated models and patterns imported – or imposed – by an imperialist French power.
Almost a century after the conquest by the French, Azouaou Mammeri (1886–1954), Abdelhalim Hemche (1906–1978), Mohammed Zmirli (1909-1984), and Miloud Boukerche (1920–1979) were the first to introduce easel painting.
How to reappropriate one's own history is a dynamic in Algerian contemporary art, reflecting on the deep social changes people experienced.
Artists attempt a successful introspective work in which the duality in terms of identity creates a dynamic that overcomes "orientalism" and exotism.
A clear shift in operated from orientalism and exoticism: new themes such as the trauma and the pain appear, for instance in the portrait The Widow (1970) by Mohamed Issiakhem.
"Art is a form of resistance as it suggests and makes visible the invisible, the hidden, it stands alert on the side of life".
The "Painters of the Sign" are Algerian artists born in the 1930s who, at the beginning of the 1960s, found inspiration in the abstract rhythm of Arabic writing.
The first collective exhibition reunited Aksouh, Baya, Abdallah Benanteur, Bouzid, Abdelkader Guermaz, Khadda, Jean de Maisonseul, Maria Manton, Martinez, Louis Nallard and Rezki Zérarti.
Denis Martinez and Choukri Mesli participated in the creation of the group Aouchem (Tattoo), which held several exhibitions in Algiers and Blida in 1967, 1968 et 1971.
In a large installation in 2007 called Ghost, he displayed dozens of veiled figures on their knees, made of aluminum foil.
[23] Adel Abdessemed, born in Constantina in 1970, attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Algiers, Algeria and then Lyon, France.
Through his conceptual artworks, he displays strong artistic statements using a wide range of media (drawing, video, photography, performance, and installation).
One of his artworks was a burnt car entitled Practice Zero Tolerance, a year after riots in France and in the midst of a resurgence of terrorist attacks since 11 September 2001.
