For his first retrospective in France, Hassan Hajjaj transformed the European House of Photography into the Moroccan House of Photography.

Born in 1961 in Larache, Morocco, Hassan Hajjaj has since lived and worked in both London and Morocco. Equally influenced by the London cultural and music scene, and his North African heritage, his practice reflects his ability to build bridges between the two cultures. This is most evident in the photographic series he began producing in the 1980s using colourful compositions to mix and blend the codes of contemporary fashion photography and Pop Art, bringing together different styles, references and icons.

But beyond the sometimes deliberately kitsch look and playful humour that these images exude, they also support the artist’s message. For if Hassan Hajjaj plays with the imagery of fashion brands, it is not only a response to the question of what constitutes “today’s new Pop Art”; but it is also a way of expressing his position on today’s consumer society, especially with respect to the act of wearing the veil. By picturing young veiled women engaging with pop art and fashion that often ignore them, the artist seeks to explore questions of identity politics.

Furthermore, this combination of statements and Pop Art aesthetic, is also reflected in the frames for his photographs, which he makes in three dimensions using products mainly from Moroccan consumer culture (tin cans, tubes of harissa, and so on) and which become an integral part of the artwork. It is no accident that Rachid Taha gave Hassan Hajjaj the nickname Andy Wahloo* (“I have nothing” in Arabic), an aphorism Hajjaj prints on his clothes, within his installations, and which is the name of the bar in Paris whose interior he designed.

PART 1 – VOGUE : THE ARAB ISSUE

The first room of the retrospective exhibition highlights Hassan Hajjaj’s interest in the world of fashion and clothes— as well as its contradictions. The works on display reference, with some irony, the regular fashion shoots that take place for magazines in the Medina of Marrakesh and Casablanca. However, instead of the European models who are usually photographed, Hassan Hajjaj presents a series of portraits of Moroccan women wearing his own designs, which are most often influenced by traditional Moroccan clothing.

These posed tableau are accompanied by portraits showing women wearing traditional Hijabs, and are echoed by a series of hand-painted portraits also depicting veiled women, against vividly coloured backgrounds.

PART 2 – U-LOT INSTALLATION; “LEGS”, “GNAWI RIDERS” AND “KESH ANGELS” SERIES

Vogue: The Arab Issue is followed by works from different series, as well as a new video installation titled U-LOT, where Hajjaj pursues his exploration of the ambiguous status of the veil in contemporary society.

In conjunction he shows the “Legs” series, featuring photographs that are cropped in an unusual way, highligh- ting the legs of models wearing clothes with very different cultural origins. This work marks a transition between the first part of the exhibition, which is rooted in the world of fashion and clothing in general, and the rest of the show which is more focused on the daily lives and lifestyles of the models.

In these images traditional items and major luxury brand logos are seen side by side. Lively and colourful, like all of Hassan Hajjaj’s work, they resonate with his fashion creations and once again reflect the influence of Pop Art and his connections with, and fondness for, his native country:

“I especially love Morocco’s light and colours. I love all colours, but especially a mish-mash of colours: I’ve learned not to be scared of mixing everything together. Music is also very important to me and I listen to it while I work. Maybe you can tell – the images and the frames have a kind of rhythm”

This section of the show continues with two series presented side by side: “Gnawi Riders” and “Kesh Angels”. In the first, Hassan Hajjaj has photographed gnawa musicians from the traditional culture of the same name. All his models are men striking the same pose on motorbikes: with one foot on the ground.

The title of “Kesh Angels” takes its inspiration from Hells Angels gangs and references the abbreviated nickname of Marrakesh (“Kesh”). These are portraits of women who wear djellabas, scarves, veils or other traditional items that contrast sharply with the surprising modernity of certain details, such as vividly coloured fabrics, leopard prints, sunglasses, or shoes imitating high-end luxury brands. Proud and defiant, they pose on their motorbikes on which they ride around Marrakesh.

PART 3 – MY ROCKSTARS

The series “My Rockstars” is a vibrant tribute to the personalities that form the backdrop for Hajjaj’s cultural life from London, North Africa and elsewhere: not only internationally famous artists, but also friends and acquaintances of Hassan Hajjaj who are unknown to the general public. Most of the models, selected subjectively by the artist, are musicians working in a variety of styles, for example hip-hop, jazz and gnawa. They include Rachid Taha, Keziah Jones and Hindi Zahra.

A few days before the shoot, Hassan Hajjaj selects the décor and clothes to create an overall setting. This preparation gives a lot of freedom to the model, to whom Hajjaj gives a predominant role: the picture is not just Hassan’s photograph, but a photograph of an actual person. The work is a collaborative process where the model has to convey his or her character and tastes, sometimes by suggesting accessories and even the setting for the shoot.

PART 4 – BLACK AND WHITE PORTRAITS

The retrospective exhibition ends with a series of unpublished black and white photographs from throughout Hajjaj’s long career: these portraits, group photographs, and more documentary-like street scenes are in marked contrast to the colourful photographs that precede them in the show.

But whatever the series, the model or the colour of the photograph, Hassan Hajjaj reminds us: “I wanted to show the world what I saw of the country and its people – the energy, the attitude; the inventiveness and glamour of street fashion; the fantastic graphics on everyday objects and products; people’s happy outlook and strength of character”.

TRANSFORMATION OF THE EUROPEAN HOUSE OF PHOTOGRAPHY OF PARIS INTO THE MOROCCAN HOUSE OF PHOTOGRAPHY

On the occasion of this first retrospective of the artist in France, Hassan Hajjaj himself offers carte blanche to two Moroccan artists whom he invites successively to present their work in the European House of Photography Studio: Zahrin Kahlo (11.09-13.10) and Lamia Naji (18.10-17.11).

To make the European House of Photography of Paris a real ‘Moroccan House of Photography’ Hajjaj will invest the building with his unique world, presenting his wallpapers, rugs, furniture, objects and clothes.

In addition to photography, design and recycling are at the heart of the work of Hassan Hajjaj, who combines ethnic influences, logos and everyday objects often from the basis of very simple everyday materials, taking all kinds of clichés and giving them a contemporary, sometimes deliberately kitsch form: soft drinks crates become benches, paint pots are made into stools, road signs and shop signs are turned into tables, and tin cans are transformed into chandeliers.

Around the exhibition

With regard to the retrospective programme devoted to Hassan Hajjaj, whose aesthetics are mainly based on studio practice, La Petite Galerie of the European House of Photography of Paris, dedicated to young audiences, presents “STUDIO AFRICAIN“, a selection of works by the first great African portraitists.

Artists presented :
Seydou Keita (1921 Bamako, Mali – 2001 Paris)
Abdourahmane Sakaly (1926 Saint-Louis, Sénégal – 1988 Bamako, Mali)
Sory Sanlé (1943 Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso)
Malick Sidibé (1935 Soloba, Mali – 2016 Bamako, Mali)

The retrospective exhibition “Carte blanche à Hassan Hajjajaj” is to be seen at the European House of Photography in Paris until 17 November 2019. Address: 5-7 rue de Fourcy, 75004 Paris (France).

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“Far from the reaches of frivolity–a domain to which fashion is usually relegated–Black people have continually engaged the fashion object beyond its utilitarian functions into a device of pride, protection, resistance and camouflage,”— states curator Dario Calmese.

Featuring work by 14 artists,  the new exhibition “Fashioning the Black Body” surveys how fashion, style, and the garment act as devices of investigative storytelling.

As a form of identification, self-actualization, and agency, the select artists engage the fashion object from various points of its ontogeny. In turn, Fashioning the Black Body becomes a dialogue about space: the space between black skin and cloth, the space that exists between the historically commodified and fetishized black body, and the space claimed for one’s self-defined identity.

Featured artists include: Bisa Butler, Soly Cissé, Renee Cox, David Antonio Cruz, Kenturah Davis, Hassan Hajjaj, Basil Kincaid, Mario Moore, Chris Ofili, Fahamu Pecou, Katherine Simóne Reynolds, Jacolby Satterwhite, Stan Squirewell, Mickalene Thomas, and Kehinde Wiley.

Through the work of these artists, the Black body is transubstantiated into a semipermeable membrane between the gaze and the contents it holds–and more concretely–the tenuous distances between who we are, who we want to be, and how we are perceived.

The curator of the event Dario Calmese is an artist working in photography whose practice includes live performance, video, and text. He received his master’s in photography from School of Visual Arts and his bachelor’s in psychology at Rockhurst University in Kansas City. Classically trained in the performing arts, he uses his knowledge of movement, gesture, and psychology to create characters and narratives that explore history, race, class, and what it means to be human.

“Fashioning the Black Body” opens this Friday, March 15 and will remain on view through May 4. A talk with curator Dario Calmese and artists Kenturah Davis, Basil Kincaid and Katherine Simóne Reynolds — moderated by Rikki Byrd — will take place at the gallery this Saturday, March 16 at 11 a.m.

*Images courtesy of projects+gallery.

→ For more information, visit projects+gallery’s website.

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After the great success of its inaugural exhibitions Africa Is No Island and Second Life (27 February – 29 July 2018), the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), Marrakech, announced recently the opening of its new exhibition, Esoteric Writings.

The exhibition Esoteric Writings is an invitation to a personal interpretation of singular artworks from all quarters of the African continent. These artists – whether self-taught or formally trained – endeavour to reclaim some heritage threatened by oblivion or other animist aesthetic through the exploration of properties of wood (Prince Twins Seven-Seven, Ali Maimoun, El Anatsui, Ahmed Chiha, Abderrahim Trifis), or the mythologisation of textile (Abdoulaye Konaté, Joël Andrianomearisoa). Each of the artists in the exhibition proposes his or her own visual language. If an exact decryption of the graphic (Abdelmalek Berhiss, Najia Mehadji), numerary (Marcel Gotène, Houssein Miloudi), or literary (Frédéric Bruly Bouabré) codes might escape the casual viewer, one needs no cultural or religious references to appreciate the narrative force and formal power behind these works.

Esoteric Writings thus brings together nearly thirty artists with as many visual and sound expressions that derive their essence from mythology, cosmology, or mysticism, each inspired by the culture of origin of its creator.

The exhibition also represents an opportunity to pay homage to Boujemâa Lakhdar, renowned ethnologist from the Essaouira (Morocco) region and the only artist to have represented the Maghreb in the groundbreaking exhibition Magiciens de la Terre (Centre Georges-Pompidou, 1989). Through his interest into the bonds between the region’s inhabitants as well as spiritual and esoteric aspects of Jewish-Arab and Amazigh culture, Lakhdar funnels his attraction to magic and the supernatural into a formidable and multidimensional body of work (Astrolabe musical, 1985, Le Totem de la Pensée, 1987, Table-Aigle, 1983).

So, from the souiri painters of Essaouira (Mohammed Tabal, Ali Maimoun, Regragui Bouslaï) to the Oshogbo school – at the centre of Yoruba civilisation – as represented by Prince Twins Seven-Seven, not to mention the Poto-Poto school from which Marcel Gotène (Congo) emerged as a major figure, Esoteric Writings reconfigures the fantastic, symbolic, and spiritual universe as if to reconstruct a secular past through powerful visual allegories.

Esoteric Writings presents a group of creators from multiple backgrounds, working in diverse mediums yet born of the same land, and in so doing proposes to reveal the hidden underpinnings of their common history. 

Participating Artists:

• El Anatsui (Ghana)
• Joël Andrianomearisoa (Madagascar)
• Farid Belkahia (Morocco)
• Abdelmalek Berkhiss (Morocco)
• Regragui Bouslai (Morocco)
• Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (Ivory Coast)
• Ahmed Chiha (Morocco)
• Emo de Medeiros (France – Benin)
• Abdellah El Atrach (Morocco)
• Mohamed El baz (Morocco)
• John Goba (Sierra Leone)
• Marcel Gotène (Congo)
• Hassan Hajjaj (Morocco)
• Aissa Ikken (Morocco)
• Abdoulaye Konaté (Mali)
• Boujemâa Lakhdar (Morocco)
• Ahmed Louardiri (Morocco)
• Ali Maimoun (Morocco)
• Najia Mehadji (Morocco)
• Houssein Miloudi (Morocco)
• Zina Saro-Wiwa (Nigeria)
• Mohamed Tabal (Morocco)
• Prince Twins Seven Seven (Nigeria)
• Dominique Zinkpè (Benin)

Esoteric Writings

27 September 2018 – 6 January 2019

Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Madeen

Al Maaden, Sidi Youssef Ben Ali, 40000 Marrakech

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