Getting Out of the Dead End

Joukhadar, beginning his aesthetic research, immediately had this reflection on the evolution of Western art and found that all possibilities are currently exhausted. The race for novelty has led to a general decline in taste; who knows today how to recognize a great work in its subtle dimensions and in its nuances? For Joukhadar, it was necessary to try to open a broader path for art, to reintroduce the freedom of the artist, but a true freedom of inspiration, outside of the shackles of the currents that come and go.

In creating his designs for luxury fabrics, Joukhadar started from the observation that modern creations have lost the class of the created objects of previous centuries. At best, modern artists succeed in making objects or a grandiose decoration for a grand hotel, but nothing exceptional or anything that could equal certain objects with which kings surrounded themselves; the refinement and subtlety are missing, for which ancient objects are bought at the price of gold. However, customers want modern objects and decoration to which they are entitled, not old copies. For Joukhadar, the reason the modern artist fails to meet this challenge, that is to say to add the touch of subtle refinement that would make all the difference, is that he is intoxicated, from his childhood and from school, with ugly objects and poorly harmonious colours. He is soaked in it without knowing it.

In the West today it is necessary to take the risk and the gamble of teaching the public again to really appreciate an art in which the spectacular and novelty are not just covers to hide defects.

Through his reflection on art and in the course of his aesthetic research, Joukhadar has come up with a rich and constructive proposal, which opens a breach and calls for a renewal of Western art. The work he created himself is meant to illustrate these principles: it preserves the pure essence of art by transcribing it through the canons of our time; it is a work of great modernity which refuses to be classified and enclosed in a genre or a single style. The objective of such a work is not novelty at all costs, but rather to make an original and modern proposal, while recovering the elements of subtlety and finesse which are characteristic of the great works of our masters of the past, those one never tires of admiring, whatever the time. This is an atypical work that the Joukhadar Foundation has taken under its wing because it reflects a whole new philosophy that applies to many fields.