The Birds Are Chirping Above The Tree is a homecoming of sorts, marking the first solo presentation of works by the late Algerian artist Hamid Zénati in his native North Africa. This exhibition, held at the B7L9 Art Centre, is the result of a collaboration between the Kamel Lazaar Foundation and the Hamid Zénati Estate, with the support of the Goethe-Institut Tunis, coming together in celebration of Zénati’s singular creative legacy.
A self-taught artist, Hamid Zénati (1944–2022) was born in Constantine, Algeria, which was then under French occupation. The artist’s family built their home in the working-class neighbourhood of Belcourt, in a picturesque landscape by the sea that continued to inspire Zénati throughout his expansive oeuvre. He worked tirelessly and almost compulsively, painting on any surface available to him, in what became his signature style, described as an ‘all-over’ technique, building his practice in the spaces between his formal jobs. Zénati’s bold and inventive works, across textiles, found objects, garments and wearables, ceramics, and photographs, incorporate elements of language, symbols, vivid colour and pattern, natural forms and a multitude of references to the visual expressions of the region.
The exhibition draws its title from a family anecdote, recalling Hamid Zénati’s first Arabic lesson as a young student in Algeria — a quiet act of resistance, undertaken in secret at a time when the study of Arabic was outlawed under French colonial rule. This formative experience points to his profound relationship with language, shaped by his upbringing in a multilingual environment, and his continued appetite for languages over the years. Fluent in Darija, French, and Arabic, and well versed in English, Zénati went on to learn German and often found work as a translator following his move to Germany in the mid-1960s. In diaspora, where his artistic practice flourished through fragmented perceptions of his homeland, Zénati developed a diverse visual language as a means of expression beyond words and the fog of language. His personal library, a true cabinet of curiosities, reflects his eclectic interests and wide-ranging literary and visual references. It includes calligraphically illustrated poetry by Khalil Gibran, French literary classics, postcolonial and political theory, artist books, and volumes on graphic and textile design, Islamic geometry, ornamentation and pattern in fashion and the decorative arts, as well as titles on historic Arab costume, Algerian history, the Sahara, music, yoga, and culinary traditions. His music library similarly reflects his broad-ranging interests, featuring an encyclopaedic range of genres from classical music, to jazz, funk, fusion, and Berber music, including albums from around the world by iconic artists such as Umm Kalthoum, Houria Aïchi and Sun Ra. Zénati was always listening to
music and in considering music a language of its own, its reverberations can be found in the rhythmic qualities of his works.
Zénati’s body of work is seen alongside a selection of historic objects from the Kamel Lazaar Foundation’s collection, offering historical context for the rich visual vocabularies of North Africa, which have inspired numerous artists from the region and beyond. Through a diverse selection of ceramics, Tunisian textiles, costumes, and carpets, a stunning repertoire of North Africa’s cultural treasures is brought to light. Together with Zénati’s works, they evoke the symbolism, colours and forms, calligraphy, and motifs, drawn from the enigmatic riches of the region.
This first solo exhibition in Tunisia presents Zénati’s multifaceted oeuvre alongside works by his contemporaries from the Kamel Lazaar Foundation’s collection, including artists from North Africa and beyond who were largely active during the modern period, with a special focus on the Tunisian modern movement.
Notable artists featured include Abdelaziz Gorgi (Tunisia, 1928–2008); Abderrazak Sahli (Tunisia, 1941–2009); Ali Bellagha (Tunisia, 1924–2006); Aly Ben Salem (Tunisia, 1910–2001); Ammar Farhat (Tunisia, 1911–1987); Baya Mahieddine (Algeria, 1931–1998); Brahim Dhahak (Tunisia, 1931–2004); Mahmoud Sehili (Tunisia, 1931–2015); Nejib Belkhodja (Tunisia, 1933–2007); Nja Mahdaoui (Tunisia, b. 1937); Safia Farhat (Tunisia, 1924–2004); and Souhila Bel Bahar (Algeria, 1934–2023).
Works on view share strong resonances with Zénati’s artistic practice and his literary and visual references, exploring themes and visual languages that span abstraction, figuration, architecture and landscape, natural forms, and the materiality of textiles and calligraphy. Baya’s whimsical feminist compositions, together with the vibrant and imaginative works of modernist Tunisian artists who sought to express notions of ‘Tunisianity’ – such as Nejib Belkhodja’s kaleidoscopic depictions of architecture, the joyful tapestries of Safia Farhat, the intricate calligraphic details of work by Nja Mahdaoui, and Souhila Bel Bahar’s bold and expressive experiments in abstraction chart a manifold history of North African art, brought forth in dizzying bursts of colour.
A selection of works by Iraqi artist Dia Azzawi (b. 1939) is also included, accompanied by a curated selection of publications from the artist’s extensive archive, which features exhibition catalogues of related artworks and a selection of compelling books of works from North Africa and the broader Arab world. Dia Azzawi’s ceramic experimentation, and poignant folkloric symbols are a poetic nod to Zénati’s life and practice. A significant thinker whose contributions have shaped the trajectory of modern Arab art, Azzawi’s archive provides a vital framework for understanding the evolution of modern art across the Arab world, reflecting many of the thematic concerns found in Zénati’s
own work — from the poetics of exile and memory to a visual language deeply connected to the fabric of place and history.
The exhibition presents an artistic commission by Egyptian-Lebanese perfumer and interdisciplinary artist Dana El Masri who has created two distinctive fragrances — Nafs (Self, Spirit, Breath) and Joy (2025) — inspired by Zénati’s life and work. These are presented alongside recollections of memories by Zénati’s family and friends, inviting audiences to experience Zénati’s oeuvre through a multisensory journey. The commission offers a more intimate and atmospheric entry into the artist’s world — a means of conjuring presence through scent, collapsing the distance between memory and material, and evoking the textures of a life lived in color.
As renowned Algerian artist Mohamed Khadda (1930–1991) suggested in his Éléments pour un art nouveau (1964), “the painter lives in a world that influences him and that he, in turn, influences; and if he is a witness of his time, he is also a creator of new forms that he imposes on his contemporaries.”1 Zénati’s oeuvre embodies the spirit put forward by Khadda, which he exhibited in his lifetime in the street, in public squares, adorning the facades of buildings, and lighting up windowless walls – rediscovering the breadth and meaning of pictorial art. The Birds Are Chirping Above The Tree presents Zénati as a true witness of his time, seen through his multifaceted creative output, alongside the works of his contemporaries, reflecting the wealth of the art histories of the region which reveal the concerns, exchanges, influences and practices of the continent, carrying within them promises of reciprocal enrichment. Challenging the ways in which conventions become codified, Zénati’s practice refuses notions of certainty, urging us to shape our own meanings beyond familiar rules. This, his work teaches us, is where freedom begins.
