Rachid Koraichi

Born Aïn Beïda, Algeria, 1947

Koraïchi studied art at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux- Arts in Algiers and Paris, 1967–71 and 1975–7 respectively, at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 1971–5, and at the Institut d’Urbanisme at the Académie de Paris, 1973–5. His work includes drawings, weavings, prints, paintings on silk and installations – most often including Arabic script as well as magical signs and symbols. He has collaborated with a number of poets and authors, among them Mahmoud Darwish, Mohammed Dib, Jamel Eddine Bencheikh, René Char and Michel Butor. In 1995 he was one of six international artists – along with Friedensreich Hundertwasser (Austria), Souleymane Keita (Senegal), Roberto Matta (Chile), Robert Rauschenberg (USA) and Dan You (Vietnam) – chosen for the UNESCO project Six Flags of Tolerance. He has exhibited extensively, including at the fortyninth Venice Biennale, 2001, where his celebrated installation The path of roses was shown, and recently at the October Gallery, London, 2005. Koraïchi is an honorary member of the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, founded in Ramallah, Palestine, 1996. He lives and works in Paris.