FLEUR MACDONALD OCTOBER 25TH 2017 Va va vroom Gang of Marrakesh from Kesh Angels Born in Morocco and raised in Britain, Hassan Hajjaj, a London-based photographer and furniture designer, wears his influences on his Ankara-print sleeve: the Maghreb mingles with London street style, hip hop with haute couture, religious tradition with modern consumerism. The riotously fun La Caravane, his first show in Britain in seven years and the flagship exhibition of the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair at Somerset House in London, fuses global pop culture with Islamic aesthetics. Though La Caravane is a small show, featuring photographs, sculptures and video work from only two series, it s enough to give a flavour of his work. Kesh Angels (2014) the reference is to Hell s, not Charlie captures the women who zip through the technicoloured warrens of the bazaars in Marrakesh on their motorbikes. My Rock Stars:
Caribbean and Africa. The symmetrical patterns found in the borders and backgrounds of these portraits are a modern spin on the traditional geometric designs of Islamic art. Their wooden frames, which double as shelves, invoke a very different period. They contain brightly packaged household products like stock cubes and fizzy drinks cans. It s a tip of the hat to Andy Warhol, but while both artists put ordinary, everyday objects on the pedestal, there is nothing of Warhol s cynicism in Hajjaj s work. His art celebrates everyday life, and the talented artists who deserve more than 15 minutes of fame. Kesh Angels HASSANHAJJAJ, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND VIGO GALLERY Hajjaj filmed these women for his documentary Karima", which premiered in 2015 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. As they speed to their next appointment in hi-viz hijabs and designer djellabas (you won t see any black burqas here), these girl-biker gangs evoke comicbook superheroes. Of course, they re not really gangsters. These women, many of whom are Hajjaj s friends, earn their living as henna-tattoo artists and they drive to work every morning on their motorbikes. The colours, patterns and shapes of their outfits, which Hajjaj designed, reflect the vibrancy of North Africa and the influence of globalisation some wear Nike headscarves and Louis Vuitton slippers. These photographs update the stereotypical image of Arab women handed down to Westerners by painters like Delacroix and Matisse, whose canvases are full of nudes reclining in harems or boudoirs. These images seem to say: why bother with a perfumed eunuch or a masticating camel when you can ride a monogrammed moped?
Rider from Kesh Angels series HASSANHAJJAJ, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND VIGO GALLERY Hajjaj was inspired to start photographing Moroccan women after noticing, on a fashion shoot in Morocco, that all the models were foreign. But his subjects aren t local models; they re real women whose kohl is sometimes smudged and whose skin isn t flawless. Hajjaj aims to challenge the Western ideal of beauty. Afrikan Boy Sittin from My Rock Stars: Volume 2 series HASSANHAJJAJ, COURTESY OF THE
The nine works in My Rock Stars appear to be photographs, but as the artists stand up to perform one by one you realise you are looking at screens. Video art is rarely as compelling as these MTV-worthy performances. When Afrikan Boy, a British-Nigerian artist who, like Hajjaj, revels in his dual identity, starts to rap, the others look sideways at him and nod or sway to the rhythm. In a thick Nigerian accent, he delivers lines from his 2013 song Hit Em Up : When I was younger they said I was fat, I stopped learning how to swim just because of that. He s mocking the stereotype of the African who is skeletally thin, and can t swim. Hindi Rockin from My Rock Stars: Volume 2 series, HASSANHAJJAJ, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND VIGO GALLERY Hajjaj s stripey backgrounds and fierce poses recall Malick Sidibé, another African photographer whose work was exhibited at 1:54 Art Fair last year. But Hajjaj s backdrops are more reminiscent of market stalls than the studio, and he doesn t have to work as hard as Sidibé to coax charisma from his subjects they are all performers, and he photographs them from below as if he were shooting covers for old-school hip-hop albums. Hindi is a Franco- Moroccan singer, who like Hajjaj, is self-taught. She wears a man s suit jacket made from wax fabric, cinched behind her back; a cigarette dangles from one hand. Though her pose is exuberant, the song she sings in the video is melancholy.
M.R.S. Shades from My Rock Stars: Volume 2 series, HASSANHAJJAJ, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND VIGO GALLERY Hajjaj transforms the objects in his portraits into works of art. A customised moped dominates the first room and there are framed accessories in the last. These artfully arranged sunglasses show how Hajjaj finds value in the everyday. As debate rages over what constitutes cultural appropriation, Hassan Hajjaj champions cultural appreciation. La Caravane is a travelling bazaar, a gleeful reflection on the creativity that occurs when different cultures cross borders. Hassan Hajjaj: La Caravane Somerset House, London, until January 7 th Fleur Macdonald is features editor of TRUE Africa, a website that looks at culture, music, sport and politics from an African perspective https://www.1843magazine.com/culture/the- daily/hassan- hajjaj- makes- marrakesh- go- pop
Hassan Hajjaj s Vibrant Photographs are a Riot of Colour By Javier Hirschfeld on October 18, 2017 La Caravane is a new exhibition of Hassan Hajjaj s photography at London s Somerset House, that includes works from his 20-year career. Javier Hirschfeld meets the artist. London calling: Born in 1961 in Larache, Morocco, Hassan Hajjaj moved to London with his family when he was 13. Leaving school at 15, he found himself at the centre of the capital s legendary 1980s club scene. He turned his attention to design and began to work with artists, musicians and DJs, organising underground parties and launching a fashion label. Hajjaj has created a brightly colourful and personal visual universe inspired by both his London life and his childhood memories. Labour of love: Hajjaj drew inspiration from the traditional photography studios families would visit in 1960s Morocco, from visually stunning Indian film posters, and from the fashion and abstract photographers he found in London. It was really just a labour of love it wasn t something I was planning to use for work or to become an artist. I took pictures of my friends, my cousins and a couple of characters I found interesting. I wasn t shooting regularly, it was now and then, and then the passion of it just took over." Culture clash: Hajjaj saw an opportunity to bring together two very different cultures through his images. In the 70s when I came to London and said I came from Morocco they always made fun and said ah Sahara sand, hashish, mint tea... he reveals. I wanted to try to show that we have a culture that has a difference, that there s a lot of depth, that there s stuff beneath the caricature of the countries." The first body of work Hajjaj exhibited focused on Arabic products, combining them in his images with Western brands like Fanta, Coca Cola, Louis Vuitton and Nike. It was about showing graphics from the Arab world that I got influenced by, graffiti artists, graphic designers, he says. In Arab countries there s going to be brands from the West that are written in Arabic, but you would immediately recognise if it s Coca Cola or Pepsi. So I played on this to take people on a journey to local products. A global Arab artist: Hajjaj s work is now collected by institutions such as the Victoria and Albert and British museums as well as proving hugely popular online. My early shows were different - I m talking almost 20 years ago - being under the banner of Arab artist or Muslim artist I felt I was on my own in a way, Hajjaj explains. I had this new audience, very positive, lots of things going viral on the internet. And it made me realise that prior to that, I had really strong support from my culture, right across the Middle East, even the Arab kids that lived in Europe, because the internet helped to expose my work. I realised from emails I got that I was doing something positive for the culture. I was very happy because it's almost as if I got a tick from my background. I would have been very sad if I got success in America and nobody in my culture had known my work.
Kesh Angels: "Kesh is short for Marrakech." The city of Marrakech inspired Hajjaj s project Kesh Angels, because it is a city full of bikes, probably like Rome, because of the architecture of the city, he says. It s probably the only city in Morocco that's actually using bikes and everybody uses them, from young, old, male, female, traditional, modern. I took this idea that was happening there and highlighted it and added my fingerprints, Hajjaj says, who started work on the project in 1997. Luckily they were friends, and it was about trust. So there are some images that are 100 per cent what they are wearing, I might add some glasses or some socks or something and then I try to set up and get them to pose it's about people. The bright stuff: For Hajjaj, leaving Morocco s vibrant colours, was almost like going to black-and-white movies, and somehow in my work I must have gone back subconsciously to where I m coming from, he explains. I always liked blackand-white pictures, I almost preferred it. But colour came naturally when I looked around me for stuff to shoot, in the medina or the souk when I m in Morocco, or Brick Lane or Portobello in London." My Rock Stars: My Rock Stars is Hajjaj s most recent project, which looks back to his days in 1980s London. I [had] this ton of people who are underdogs, they are not mainstream, so I thought why not start documenting them, doing it in my style where I am trying to make something out of nothing, trying to have this cheap textile, cheap stuff and make it look grand, something that could be from the past or the future. The sound of music: "Growing up in Morocco there s always music around, but then there was Indian music, Italian [and] Arabic Egyptian, so I had all this influence. Coming to England it was discovering all these new sounds by different people from all parts of the world. I discovered Soul, Reggae, Jazz, Funk. There was music around me all the time. My friends were musicians and I was probably the frustrated musician. My Rock Stars Experimental, volume 1 is Hajjaj's first series of video portraits. Old masters: Hajjaj s work follows the tradition of West African studio photography. "When I started doing the studio shoots, obviously, I had in mind Malick Sidibé, Samuel Fosso they were the photographers of the city. I realised those photographers documented those cities at that point of time. Then I thought to myself, I am somebody from this city but I ve been moved to the UK and all these friends of mine are also being moved like myself. That's why I call it documenting because it's that moment of me being with them and also who they are because they have inspired me, influenced me in my work as well as my life. Picture perfect: Although Hajjaj had been consistently shooting portraits for five years (mainly for himself), he was uncertain about showing his portraits to the public. I showed my first body of work with all the products in 1993, and then I did my first shows in the late 90s. But then when I started taking pictures of friends I thought it was more personal, I just didn t want to show it anywhere. So I felt I had to protect it for some reason. I didn t know why, he says. It was after showing those portraits to curator Rose Issa that they decided to do a show in 2007. Rose Issa loved the work and asked him to print one of them to show to a client. Hassan printed two, framing one in a traditional way, leaving himself the other to experiment with: I thought I am still young enough to have fun with it, to look for products, to communicate with people, he says. I started playing with that notion, because I was already using products within my pictures. The idea was, using this to attract people without realising that I am using the repeated patterns that we have in Morocco. All that came out that [ended up] giving a style, easy to read from young kids to somebody older. "When you see Malick Sidibé you see a time, you see the 1950s or 60s. In my pictures I want to confuse people because it could be the past there s no date on them in a kind of way. The idea is documenting these friends who had been scattered around along the globe like myself. Malick Sidibé had his journey and hopefully I m having my journey in my own way." http://www.bbc.com/culture/gallery/20171017-hassan-hajjajs-technicolor-journey
CULTURE & ARTS These Portraits of Moroccan Hipsters Are More Nuanced Than They Look By Mallika Rao on September 12, 2014 The New York Times sees shades of Matisse and Koons. ArtNet is convinced he s the next David LaChapelle. But Hassan Hajjaj, the Moroccan stylist and photographer, started out simply wanting to capture the essence of his home country in ways his buddies back in London would appreciate. The 53-year-old multidisciplinary artist was born in Morocco and moved to London in his teens, at the height of the punk craze. For the last 15 years, he s joined the two cultures, splitting his time between Marrakech and London as he turns out densely textured portrait photography that plays well in the West but requires North African artistry to even exist at all. His subjects are his current friends, who pose and dress in ways that translate into arresting hybrid art. A recent series, Kesh Angels, depicts a cross-section of this crowd mostly women in traditional clothes printed in global symbols of capitalism. Here a Louis Vuitton print, there a Nike swoosh. Many are henna tattoo artists who embody nuance in their daily life, zipping to jobs on a scooter, head scarves in place. Likewise, Hajjaj s first solo show in America My Rock Stars: Volume 2 presented his male friends in the overblown poses of a Western icon, the rock star. Hajjaj designs the entirety of his shows, down to the clothes for the shoot and gallery seating. He hires local tailors and artisans to manufacture the work, which is often a neat fusion of two ideas, such as a Western suit pieced out of regional textiles. Hajjaj may be the name in the gallery notes, but these men and women are collaborators, switching from what Hajjaj once called an automatic, factory process a souk tailor might typically produce nothing but pinstriped suits for businessmen throughout his career to atelier-esque customization. Frames are another chance to cross breed. The repetitive quality of Moroccan mosaic is echoed in inset rows of products printed with Arabic script. The tactile patterns, sometimes made of Coke or Fanta cans, are easy to overlook at first glance, but their purpose is multidimensional. They reinforce not only the theme of global commerce, but a thoroughly Moroccan habit: to recycle items out of necessity. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/12/hassan-hajjaj-portraits_n_5807750.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/arts/design/hassan-hajjaj-kesh-angels.html
The European House of Photography Aims Young and Far The new director, Simon Baker, wants to exhibit in reorganized spaces photographers with diverse practices. By Claire Guillot, Published October 11, 2018 Breaking the boundaries of photography, including those of photographic genre and those of Europe: the new program of the European House of Photography, Paris (MEP), clearly marks a change for the era. The new British director, Simon Baker, succeeds the founder, Jean-Luc Monterosso, who held the position for more than 20 years. Presenting his exhibition program on Thursday, October 11, his plan seems to assemble around the word: diversity, encompassing equally well geographic diversity, along with sexual diversity, and diverse photographic practices. The two opening names of the program, that will debut in 2019, sound young and trendy, and speak to the director s desire to attract a new public, in which their love for photography is not only in the form of gallery prints, but also present in social networks. Simon Baker has chosen to open his program with two young artists, who have barely been exhibited in France and are known only in the field of fashion. The work of Chinese artist, Ren Hang, who committed suicide in 2017 at 29 years old, boldly poses her friends naked against the moral authority of her country. Concluding with the photographs of the 26 year old Spanish artist raised in London, Coco Capitan, familiar with the world of publicity, she creates the images that express ironic slogans and critiques of consumer culture. From September 2019, for the third season, the lively colors return with the work of Moroccan photographer Hassan Hajjaj The second season is much more classical, showing more black and white photographs on the walls of the MEP : the last works of the American, Henry Wessel, who represents current work from the New Topographics Movement. The solo-show is exhibited at the same time as a selection of photographs that come from the MEP collection focused on the theme of fil noir, with the works by Robert Adams, Diana Arbus, Daniel Boudinet, Arnaud Claass ou Paulo Nozolino. However, beginning in September 2019, for the third season, the lively colors return with the work of the Moroccan Hassan Hajjaj, artist and designer who received the carte blanche will exhibit on all of the walls of the MEP. Raised in London and known for his kitsch aesthetic tendencies and large, joyful compositions, he borrows from the codes of fashion photography, studio portraiture, and pop art, and mixes djellabahs with motorcycles, and leopard print with henna tattoo. https://www.lemonde.fr/photo/article/2018/10/11/la-maison-europeenne-de-la-photographie-vise-jeune-et-loin_5368044_4789037.html
My Rock Stars Experimental: Hassan Hajjaj Creates a Global Stage BY J E N N A F I T E P U B L I S H E D S E P T E M B E R 2, 2 0 1 4 H E S V E R Y I N T E R N A T I O N A L, I think, in how he draws in different strands but creates something that is unique. I am speaking with Dr. Linda Komaroff, Curator and Department Head of the Art of the Middle East Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, about My Rock Stars Experimental, Volume 1, a video installation by Moroccan artist and photographer Hassan Hajjaj. Komaroff has brought more than twohundred works of contemporary Middle Eastern art to LACMA, making it one of, if not the largest collection of this type of art in the United States. My Rock Stars Experimental, Volume 1 is one of her latest acquisitions, and I m curious to find out what sparked her interest. It just has a certain energy to it. He manages to capture the intensity of the colors of North Africa, even when he s not working in North Africa. This video, I believe, was all shot in London, but it has the same kind of high, exaggerated colors. The work itself is a three-channel video which displays nine separately filmed performances by people Hajjaj knows and admires, his own rock stars. The performers pose against brightly colored backgrounds dressed in traditional fabrics mixed with contemporary flare. Komaroff explains that the performers are positioned to turn towards whoever is performing so it appears as if they were filmed at the same place and time. Hajjaj sets up his backgrounds on the street, some sequences show leaves blowing by, or a dog wandering on set.
WATCH: An excerpt from My Rockstars Experimental, Volume 1 The group of performers is wonderfully eclectic. There are two British-Jamaican Muslim women known as Poetic Pilgrimage, Jose James is a singer from New York, the Nigerian singer-songwriter who calls herself The Venus Bushfires, and the London-based Moroccan musician Simo Lagnawi, a renowned performer of Gnawa, traditional African-Islamic spiritual songs and rhythms. In the excerpt above, Venezuelan singer Luzmira Zerpa performs the merengue, El dia que yo me case ( The day I get married ). It s an international group of performers, I think what ties them together is that Hassan Hajjaj admires their That energy in Hajjaj s work is what drew me in too. The vibrant colors and his choice in subjects; I was instantly mesmerized. His still frames from this project, as well as Kesh Angels, reminded me of the portraiture of Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keita, two photographers I came to admire during my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali. They, alongside other African portrait photographers, were influencers of Hajjaj s own style. According to Komaroff, he draws on not only their style, but their method, working with a studio set up outside to take in natural light. Interestingly enough, Komaroff sees Hajjaj s work, and contemporary Middle East art in general, as having a close relationship to the type of art she studied in graduate school historical Islamic art. When I saw the video, it made me think, wow if music videos existed in 15th century Morocco, this is what it would look like. I saw it as being very much tied to earlier traditions, so it s exciting for me to see a completely contemporary art medium, which is a music video, but tied to something I was very familiar with. In the context of LACMA s Islamic Art Collection as a whole, it is essential. She believes, it provides a perfect link between the past and present. My Rock Stars Experimental, Volume 1 is an ongoing exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2014/09/02/my-rock-stars-experimental-hassan-hajjaj-creates-a-global-stage/