1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair has announced a programme of Partner Projects for the 2020 edition of the Marrakech fair, taking place at La Mamounia this coming February.
In addition, 1-54 will present an extended Public Programme with all the events happening at local galleries and cultural spaces across the city over the duration of the fair.
The extended 1-54 Public Programme can be found here.
RESSALA and Intra-Muros, PRESENTED BY COMPTOIR DES MINES GALERIE
RESSALA, a major exhibition of Mohamed Arejdal’s work, stems from a desire to defend an alternative vision of art in Morocco, and offer an alternative for the fantasised ‘Great South.’ No longer limited to a spatial territory or to a geography, the ‘Great South’ put forward by the artist would find more meaning in an aggregate of customs, practices and cultures that have been overshadowed by a mainstream Eurocentric discourse. The relation to modernity, colonialism, the sacred, social ties, borders and nomadic culture are all major ardent concerns for Mohamed Arejdal.
Since her recent installation in Tahanaout after having felt the need to leave Casablanca, Fatiha Zemmouri has been thinking a lot about the action of man on his “intimate territory, his house, his garden, his agricultural plots”, and a larger one, operated at the scale of states and regions. She takes a look at the question of the appropriation and demarcation of land on an individual scale, then of the transformations that everyone feels to create their ideal territory. This concern drives her to look at and analyse the history of the world when dominant nations were able to share vast territories during the colonial era to serve their economic interests.
Opening times: Thursday 20 to Sunday 23 February, 10:00 – 19:00
Location: Corner Rue de la Liberté and Rue de Yougoslavie
+212 (0) 6 88 14 60 74
+212 (0) 6 63 01 01 91
www.comptoirdesminesgalerie.com
Hamdoulah ça va!, PRESENTED BY DADA
DaDa presents a group show conceptualised around Horse Day, directed by Mohamed Bourouissa, and brings together four young artists, Gaëlle Choisne, Neïla Czermak Ichti, Rayane Mcirdi and Sara Sadik, whose works question ideas of belonging, territory and identity.
Hamdoulah ça va!
– How is the exposition going?
– Good Hamdoulah!
– You are saying that just like that?
– Yes, I am saying it like that, as an easy way to escape the other, but deep down it is an expression that abounds with complexity and history. Such as the expression Pfff… I don’t really know. However, …it talks about what we have become, it explains the hybridity of my neighborhood, of my city. Still I am not trying to create a meaning, or draw the lines, nor to form affinities for a movement, a style, a genre or a trend that will serve synthesizing presentiments, intuitions, ideas.
– And…?
– And what? Hamdoulah ça va! It’s making the indeterminacy that I am in, the non-insurance, the possibility of imperfection, of mistake as well as the loss of meaning, all taking their place. In order to let yourself be surprised by the collision of meanings and ideas, of words and languages, they become the leitmotiv of the exhibition. You see, it is like drinking tea on the roof with aliens looking at the world as multiple impossibilities.
Curator: Mohamed Bourouissa & Artistic Director: Sonia Perrin
Opening times: Wednesday 19 to Sunday 23 February, 12:00 – 19:00
Location: 2 Place Jemaa El-Fna
www.dadamarrakech.com
T. +212 (0) 6 61 45 15 19
Uprisings of Alter Ego, PRESENTED BY INSTITUT FRANÇAIS de marrakech
The collective exhibition Uprisings of Alter Ego is part of the desire to honour the plurality of Moroccan female artists simultaneously with the refusal of any stigma. Visual dialogue participates in a collectivization of thought around the female figure as a response to societal challenges. The Alter Ego is that voice that rumbles and reveals itself. It is in this sense that the works presented: installations, paintings, drawings, photographs, sound piece, woven piece and sculptures, will take shape in Dar Moulay Ali.
Partners: French Institute of Marrakech and Fatima Zohra Bennis | Curator: Elisa Ganivet
Opening times: Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 February, 11:00 – 20:00
Location: Rue Ibn Khaldoun, by the Koutoubia mosque
www.if-maroc.org/marrakech/
T. +212 (0) 6 22 59 05 06
À l’épreuve du tamis, PRESENTED BY LE 18
À l’épreuve du tamis investigates a history of entangled concepts, those of tradition and contemporary art, drawing from a recent directory in the field of contemporary Moroccan art which proposes to reinvent artistic and cultural heritages and local knowledges and practices, and to render them through different representations. At the level of artistic production, the exhibition presents practices portraying the formally-driven process of appropriation of knowledge descending from material or immaterial heritage; and others encapsulating efforts to requalify forms or embodying contextual interventions exploring the role of the artist as an intermediary between systems of knowledge. At the level of the research, the exhibition proposes to create human mobilities and practices of art production and mediation capable of organising new sets of relations of contemporary art with territories perceived as places of marginalisation.
Curator: Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa
Opening times: Thursday 20 to Sunday 23 February, 10:00 – 18:00
Location: 18 Derb El Ferrane, Riad Laârouss
www.le18marrakech.com
T. +212 (0) 5 24 38 98 64
HAVE YOU SEEN A HORIZON LATELY?, PRESENTED BY MACAAL
The Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), Marrakech is delighted to announce HAVE YOU SEEN A HORIZON LATELY?, a group show opening on 25 February 2020. Taking its title from a song by Yoko Ono, the exhibition explores the politics of space and place, inviting the viewer to see the world differently. The exhibition features work from a selection of emerging and established international artists including Yoko Ono (USA), Kapwani Kiwanga (Canada-France), Rahima Gambo (Nigeria) and Amina Benbouchta (Morocco). Presenting a number of new commissions for the exhibition and through a variety of media including painting, installation, sculpture and video, HAVE YOU SEEN A HORIZON LATELY? sees participating artists question their lived environment in a sensitive and committed way.
Opening times: Sunday 23 February, 11:00 – 18:00 | Exhibition on view until 19 July 2020
Location: Al Maaden Sidi Youssef Ben Ali
www.macaal.org
IN-DISCIPLINE, PRESENTED BY MONTRESSO* ART FOUNDATION
For the third consecutive year alongside the fair, the Montresso* Art Foundation presents the itinerant programme supporting creation and diffusion, IN-DISCIPLINE. This year, the foundation has invited artists from the Congo River region under the patronage of Vitshois Mwilambwe Bondo. Following a residency of creation and discussion at Jardin Rouge, the exhibition IN-DISCIPLINE will be held in the heart of the Montresso* Art Space, in February 2020.
For the first edition of IN-DISCIPLINE, the Montresso* Art Foundation presented the works of five Beninese artists and last year brought a spotlight to five Ivorian artists. The strength of the programme lies its combination of research and studio time with moments of direct contact with professionals and with the international art market. IN-DISCIPLINE is a project initiated by the Montresso*Art Foundation and carried out with the support of a consolidated network of partners dedicated to the promotion of the arts and artists in Africa.
Opening times: Friday 21 and Saturday 22 February, 13:00 – 17:00 | Exhibition on view until 28 April 2020
Location: Route de Fès (precise location available on the 1-54 App)
T. +212 (0) 5 29 80 15 92
www.montresso.com
Jacques Azéma: Une aventure poétique, PRESENTED BY THE MUSÉE YVES SAINT LAURENT MARRAKECH
The musée YVES SAINT LAURENT marrakech has mounted the first retrospective devoted to the work of Jacques Azéma (1910- 1979), a French artist who made Marrakech his home in 1930. As a professor of painting in Marrakech, and later at the École des Beaux- Arts in Casablanca in the 1960s, Azéma greatly influenced the Moroccan artists of his time.
Aged twenty, he decided to crisscross North Africa, finally settling in Morocco. He remained in the Kingdom for fifty years before returning to France, where he died. He lived modestly, and shied away from any artistic or social circles. Straying away from orientalist tropes, he chose to focus instead on daily life in Morocco, leaving works that are unique, mysterious and sensual.
At a time when we are reevaluating the important role the École des Beaux- Arts in Casablanca has played in the history of art, it is only fair to pay tribute to one of its most unsung, yet leading figures.
Opening times: Friday 21 to Sunday 23 February, 10:00 – 18:00 (last admission at 17:30)
Location: Rue Yves Saint Laurent
www.museeyslmarrakech.com
