The. artists of. Morocco. By Matteo Lonardi parallelozero

Transcription

1 The artists of Morocco By Matteo Lonardi parallelozero Politics and its relationship to religion, the role of women and the scourge of illiteracy, the contradiction between economic development and the growing fear of religious fundamentalism. Twenty-eight Moroccan artists of two generations (17 men and 9 women) reflect about the future of the Arab society in a photo essay that takes us through the streets and studios of Rabat and Tangier via Casablanca and Marrakech. An itinerary which shows the schizophrenia of a country that, while dealing with the demands of modernity is the theater of a harsh contrast between two generations of painters, sculptors and visual artists. And while young creatives are seeking an identity through political provocation elders claim the merit of having first broken with the iconoclastic tradition of Islamic culture.

2 Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Casablanca She pointed at her piece displayed on the wall in front of us. The installation consisted in an odd group of individual abstract forms shaped in metal different colors. In Arabic that means love. I could see that it was the same symbol positioned and shaped in different ways. Her work is always about posing a question, about provoking the viewer.

3 Meryem El Alj, Casablanca She has been painting abstractions for twenty years. Meryem has developed herself and her work in a formal way. Her painting is about shapes and colors. I am very conscious of the socio political situation today in morocco and in the Arab world. I decided to continue on my way, there are many artists making political work today after the Arab spring. It has become very fashionable. I continue walking on my path. My work is about painting.

4 Kalamour Abdellatif, Casablanca I met him in Maarif at the beginning of April. His apartment was overcrowded. He sat on the couch and we talked about, his art, his music. He was very shy and looked astonishingly young for his age.

5 Mourabiti, Marrakech My depictions of urban horizons give a glimpse into the dialectics of a changing world. The domes symbolize the ancient wisdom of the sages, the religious knowledge: a Muslim solid ancient civilization. The parables are the symbols of the new capitalist information, which is ephemeral and fragmentary. An artist is rooted in his memories in the place where he lived. It is very important to travel but I had to keep my identity intact. The trips made me realize who I was not, and what I could have never owned.

6 Fatiha Zemmouri, Casablanca The day that she picked me up in Gauthier, the roads of Casablanca were more congested than ever. Fatiha has a very intense relationship with fabrics. Her studio looks more like the workshop of a wood worker rather than an artist studio. Her pieces were heavy. They required both metal and woodwork. Something in her character matched with this intense labor.

7 Amine Bendriouich, Casablanca I left Amine s apartment desiring one of those jackets. As an old racked fiat taxi carried me from Amine s place back to my home in Gauthier I couldn t stop thinking of the soft feeling of the silk on my skin. The memory of my image reflected in the mirror wearing a black jacket with blue details resurrected all my vanity. It was as if Amine had conditioned my thoughts and desires.

8 Mehdi Qotbi, Casablanca I saw him for the first time at the opening of his retrospective show in Casablanca. The show was held in the gallery space of an important French bank in Gauthier near to the American Consulate. What seemed to be la crème of Casa s high society had gathered for the occasion next to the most refined and abundant buffet I had seen to this day at an art exhibit. He wore a silk foulard on his neck and greeted the visitors with the affable spirit typical to the people that made it in life.

9 Larbi Cherkaoui, Marrakech There were animal skins all over his atelier. He spent half an hour explaining me how each one of these sheepskins were individual and different. We work to show the light to everyone for everyone must see it. He was working on Arabic abstraction: calligraphy and arabesque. Larbi told me these words in an attempt to define the role of the artist in society.

10 Yacout Kabbaj, Casablanca Casablanca is owned by men. We are citizens but we don t have the same rights. Women here are continuously harassed in public and privately. This way of oppressing women is rooted in a growing illiteracy here in Morocco. Its a political matter. There is no effort made to change this situation. More than the fifty percent of the population cannot reed or write.

11 Safaa Errouas, Tétouan Safaa s pieces are all monochrome white. I discovered white in my 3rd year of art school. Its only white that allows me to find purity and gives me a platform to express my sensibility.

12 Mohammed Mahdaoui, Playa Blanca That red room and the white paint really suited him. A yellowish morning light came in from the window on his face. The sea was so near I could ear the waves braking on the sand. Mohammed sat patiently on the desk posing for my photograph.

13 Amine El Gotaibi, Playa Blanca I could see Spain in front of me on the other side of the channel. Amine picked me up on his car. He was relaxed. Drops of water were still in his hair. He had just gone for a morning swim. He lives in a house on the beach. He cooked me eggs and tomatoes. His idea of art was the one of the new generation of Moroccan conceptual artists. He refused the idea of an elitist art and talked me about an art made to educate, available to everyone.

14 Rita Alaoui, Casablanca I am too out of space she told me once as I entered the white door of her studio In Gauthier. I pick up objects from the streets: dead flowers, seeds, bird bones and stones. I take them home with me and speak to them. I tell them my secrets.

15 Younes Baba Ali, Marrakech To me an artist is someone that points out issues of society and shows them from another point of view. My art making is focused on recognizing the discrepancies that exist in the system and deconstructing them through irony

16 Youssef El Kafhai, Marrakech He came to pick me up in his car just outside of the medina of Marrakech and took me to his studio. Youssef was animated by an obsession. He could not stop painting. As he told me I isolate my self, I take inspiration mostly from classical and impressionist painting. The windows of his studio were permanently closed. He had built wood panels and placed them in front of them so the light could not pass. He preferred the artificial neon light to the natural one.

17 Noureddine Amir, Marrakech Nourredine looked tired and unsatisfied that day. He smoked cigarettes one after the other. The colors of his clothing line were the ones of the medina in Marrakech. I took his picture outside of his working space. He was sitting there but his mind was somewhere else.

18 Hassan Echaïr, Tetouan I met Hassan in the medina of Tetouan. His work is about modernity, borders and issues of identity. Black rocks were hanging from his paintings. My rocks symbolize men. They are always black. Black represents carbonization, destruction. The men that I talk about are African immigrants. The Sub-Saharan immigrants cross the dunes of sand following the illusion of the future. The body becomes heavy like rock. Their shadows are the solitary companions in crossing this earth. They have burned their identities. After crossing the desert of sand they cross another desert of water. They are floating cadavers.

19 Akram Haissoufi, Marrakech He wanted to teach me something he himself had never learnt: patience. I stopped mentioning the photograph. I needed to put my goal aside. I wanted to experience him. I tried to play his game. Akram s atelier is a spacious basement under a movie theater. The concierge at the entrance keeps the keys for him. I never saw Akram using a brush. He painted with knives, pieces of metal and fabric.

20 Hamid Fardjad, Marrakech Many of he students at the ESAV in Marrakech talked about him. It might have been because of his eccentricity and for the documentary he had directed about Gnawa music. I met him at the school in between classes. I spent two years in a Gnewii house before I started shooting my documentary he told me. I really had to melt into the scene in order to construct a valuable document that could really tell the story of this culture. Before that I was living in New York for 15 years. In Morocco I found something in between the west and Iran, my home country.

21 Mahi BineBine, Marrakech Mahi Bine Bine is a star here in Marocco. He appears in talk shows. His books become movies and his paintings are shown in the major galleries of the country. Mahi smoked incessantly hiding his cigarette every time his daughter would pass through the room. He was comfortable sitting in his couch; his facial features seemed the ones of a wise merchant. His eyes ironic and proud at the same time were both gentle and insistent.

22 Mustapha Akrimi, Salé He has shy eyes. He talks in a low voice. He lives in his own apartment in the building where he grew up next to his father s workshop. I make work about work he told me than he added: my interest lays in the issues that link together labor, identity and politics here in morocco. It was raining that day and the light was low and soft in the apartment. I took a photograph of him next to his father s hammer.

23 Simo Laouli, Salè. Women walked in groups in their white and blue uniforms on their way to work. Dark smoke raised from tall chimneys blending perfectly in a gloomy gray sky. We roamed through a skeletal city. This was the neighborhood where Simo had grown up and where he still lives today. After the stock crush in 2008 the area had seen a gradual impoverishment as factories closed down living people with no jobs. The people of the neighborhood are now struggling. Simo works as an artist in this environment, making provocative interventions and trying to make art accessible to his fellow neighbors.

24 Fouad Bellamine, Rabat A red shadow of wine vibrated slightly on the Kitchen table. Voices had been loud all the evening echoing among the walls of the apartment. Fouad expressed his disillusion towards his homeland. He was talking about his generation of Moroccan artists and intellectuals that had seen the hardest moments in Morocco s history. The total absence of liberty, the hegemony of the king s power, the absence of artistic and intellectual dialogue had been great challenges for his generation. We really did fight in order to create an artistic identity in a country that had nothing culturally speaking.

25 Younes Rahmoun, Rabat He had made a precise copy of the shape of his childhood room and transported it allover the world. It could have been the last novel from Roald Dahl. But no; It was one of Younes most astounding pieces. I met Younes at the apartment 22, in front of the parliament in Rabat. He is quiet. He has a minimalist personality. He told me he had been very influenced by the Italian movement of the arte povera. We talked for a while in the muffled light of the apartment.

26 Amina Benbouchta, Casablanca Mom you look less than 30 today said Amina s young daughter entering the car and taking her eyes off the iphone for an instant. It was around four thirty on a weekday. Students came out of the gates of the French school in small groups. They talked to one another in incomprehensible codes. I had been very similar to them not so long ago. I could not comprehend them anymore. I thought of my interminable days in high school with a hint of nostalgia. Really? answered the mother. She seemed genuinely satisfied and looked at herself in the mirror of the car as the driver pulled out of the parking and entered a congested Moulay Youssef.

27 Fatima Mazmouz, Casablanca Its a long process to discover who we are and what we are meant for. Its particularly difficult here in morocco. I teach an art class here in Casablanca. Many women come to ask me about their bodies. Even the ones that have travelled and are from wealthy backgrounds cannot express them selves sexually.

28 Lamia Naji, Casablanca She was sitting on the couch in the living room. Something was on her mind. Her tooth was akin. What do you want from me man? She asked me as I introduced myself. I bet you want to hear me talk about the role of the woman in the Arab world she laughed at me from the couch sarcastically. Do you want me to wear a veil by any chance? She was laughing at me with taste, her hands covering her face.

29 Farid Belkahia, Marrakech A butler deposed a tray with glasses and a pot on the table that stood between us. Farid served a dense coffee with vanilla seeds from a simple copper pot into two transparent glasses. He looked at me in the eyes and asked me: Who are you, what are you doing here and what do you want from me?.

30 PARALLELOZERO, VIA DONATELLO 19/A, MILAN