Whether inspired by architecture, urban archaeology and landscape or personal geographies in relationship to the body and history, the work of these contemporary artists resonates strongly with some of the most pressing issues in the world today. Questions around ecology, the unequal distribution of wealth and power, the colonisation of territories, situations of oppression, and fixed and reductive conceptions of identity are all themes explored in the exhibition.

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Artskop3437 talked with the artistic director of the MACAAL: Meriem Berrada. It was an opportunity to discuss the challenges of the profession and her vision of the museum. In her opinion, “Each museum should have the role offered by its territory, which its audiences need and respond to the realities of its ecosystem”.

Meriem Berrada, for those who don’t know you yet, what is your mission as Artistic Director of the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al-Maaden (MACAAL)?

As Managing Director of the cultural projects of the Alliances Foundation, I was first of all in charge of the development of the MACAAL through the elaboration of its scientific and cultural project. Since its opening in 2016, I have been in charge of the programming of exhibitions – sometimes their curating -, the content creation and the design of the mediation programme. I am also in charge of all the museum’s editions and publications since we do everything in-house. I also oversee the implementation of all these actions by managing the teams.

Also, my mission involves strategy and development in terms of communication but also the setting up of structuring programmes for MACAAL.

Can you tell us more about some of the projects you have put in place since the creation of MACAAL?

In 2017, I conceived the MACAAL Lab as a space for experimentation aimed at enhancing and raising awareness of contemporary practices: one room of the museum is specifically dedicated to the work of an artist whose practice includes the use of new media (sound, video, installation). This is accompanied by a programme of free workshops, in the presence of the artist, on the process of creation of the work, its realization and the use of new technologies in art.

More recently, we were able to implement a transmission project that I had at heart, the MACAAL Bootcamp. It is designed to strengthen the skills of cultural agents working specifically in the contemporary art sector on the continent. This intensive training programme was held for the first time last January. Combining workshops and masterclasses on the sector’s fundamental knowledge, led by mentors with inspiring backgrounds, this groundbreaking training in cultural management applied to the reality of our ecosystems will hopefully contribute to equipping our institutions with leaders and not mere operators.

How do you curate an exhibition? How do you decide what will or can be presented in the museum (themes, artistic practices, artists, geographies)?

With a biannual exhibition rhythm, our programming is inseparable from the age of the museum. While the first exhibitions aimed to anchor the MACAAL in its pan-African dimension, by showing the works in the patrons’ collection, the selection has gradually been narrowed down to “projects” in their own right, giving a special place to the commissioning of works. The opening of the MACAAL Residence has also made it possible to produce more works because, in addition to the four annual winners of the residency programme, we welcome the artists presented in the museum’s exhibitions.

“I am convinced that a project, equipment or any action must be relevant to the context in which it takes place. (…) The environment can offer unique opportunities for dialogue and knowledge, of which artistic creation is in my opinion one of the most relevant vehicles.

Meriem Berrada, Artistic Director of the MACAAL

We never self-impose a specific theme but remain in connection with our environment and current news, without distancing ourselves from the museum’s DNA. It is above all the project of a collector, of a family who wanted to make their collection available to the general public and it has always seemed important to me to keep this spirit in the accomplishment of my mission. For many audiences, the reality of contemporary African art was a discovery. Often reduced to a primitive and colourful figuration, it was necessary to show the diversity and quality of artistic expression and its various mediums, coming from the four corners of the continent (Essentiel Paysage, E-mois autobiography of a collection, Second Life), but also to make connections, particularly through the exhibition Esoteric Writings where the alphabet of Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (Ivory Coast) was able to dialogue with that of Houssein Miloudi (Morocco).

As well, generally the reopening exhibitions are more focused on the collection and our most recent acquisitions. For the February exhibitions, which we inaugurate at the 1:54 fair, we invite an independent curator who does not systematically rely on the existing collection.

Our exhibitions are multi-media, except for Africa is no island which was dedicated to photography and which was in itself a manifest exhibition because it invited to see Africa in its complexity and diversity and not as a homogeneous block.

Even before your position at the museum, you were in charge of various artistic projects within the Alliances Foundation, the foundation that initiated the creation of MACAAL. Among your many projects, we can mention the chambre claire, a programme to support emerging photographers from Africa, or the passerelle programme, which is a sort of cross-grant programme combining a cultural approach and a social centre through workshops to raise awareness of contemporary creation in peripheral urban areas. It seems that you have brought with you a certain vision of what a cultural engagement in a territory can be. What is your vision for MACAAL? How do you see the role of a Museum in the 21st century?

Indeed, I am convinced that a project, equipment or any action must be relevant to the context in which it takes place. As hostile as it may be, the environment can offer unique opportunities for dialogue and knowledge, of which artistic creation is in my opinion one of the most relevant vehicles.

Personally, I believe that our professions only make sense if we can show, appropriate and share this common heritage with the greatest number of people. Obviously the question of a contemporary art reserved for an elite is not the only issue of the continent but the cleavages are unfortunately more marked there than elsewhere, the conditions of accessibility largely improvable and go beyond the question of the cost or the geography of the cultural equipment. That is why it is essential, here more than elsewhere, to seek out the public and not simply wait for them to come to us.

The demand is there and I can tell you that in six years I have never faced the slightest refusal from the public to participate in a mediation program, a visit or a workshop, either at the museum or in the peri-urban areas where we have activated the Gateways program. In my opinion, the museum must be as inclusive as possible, obviously connected (especially for young people) and offer a diversified programme in order to optimise its attractiveness. But once again, each museum should have the role that its territory offers it, which its audiences need and respond to the realities of its ecosystem.

With numerous programs such as the bootcamp, the MACAAL Lab, workshops, artist residencies, film club, tea party, yoga festival, we witness that the Museum seems to position itself as a real place to live, more inclusive than other museums. It invites appropriation by all. Do you think this is the key to the future for museums?

I think that, despite everything, contemporary art continues to impress and that the main barrier to access to the Museum remains psychological. I would say that we have been working on the habit of consuming museum equipment in the lives of our visitors, inviting them to join us for any kind of occasion. For example, Couscous Friday’s is a monthly action that invites different communities-which we identify or who ask us for free visits-to share a dish synonymous with conviviality in the museum gardens. By bringing couscous into the museum, one desacralizes a place by living a weekly ritual while at the same time discovering the artistic creation of its time.

The importance that I give to territorial, local, national or continental anchoring, the specificities of the audiences are all parameters that do not allow us to apply existing models because they are simply not adapted to our realities (…).

Merriem Berrada, Artistic Director of the MACAAL

We remain primarily dedicated to the promotion of the continent’s contemporary art, but it seemed more relevant to us to make it a real living space, with the possibility of finding other centres of interest, perhaps more popular and therefore more accessible. We have taken the gamble that the so-called remote public or even those with little interest in contemporary art, by discovering the MACAAL through a free and festive occasion (concert, open-air cinema), a tea break, a yoga session, can integrate the museum into their consumption habits, firstly event-driven and finally cultural. This approach may not be applicable to all museum facilities but it seems certain to me that inclusion is an essential key.

Do you think that museums on the African continent should build their own models according to local realities and not on Western models? In other words, is a museum in Africa different from one elsewhere in the world?

I am convinced that here, more than elsewhere, we must create our own approaches, and I deliberately do not use the word “model”. This is what we have been doing from the outset at the Foundation and at MACAAL, whether through our programmes or our exhibitions. The importance that I give to territorial, local, national or continental anchoring, the specificities of the audiences are all parameters that do not allow us to apply existing models because they are simply not adapted to our realities and would only be counter-productive in the work of demystifying contemporary art, appropriation by the audiences, enhancement of the artistic scene etc.

For example, we have recently reviewed the LCC program offerings due to the paradigm shift in emerging photography in Africa. Indeed, when we created the program in 2013 there was no such approach and offering the production of a solo exhibition made sense. Today, applicants to the programme have often already exhibited, but they have more needs for strengthening, for feedback on their work, for networking and the solo show is no longer an end in itself. This is why we have chosen to support structuring initiatives.

I think it’s a real strength to be able to question models, to question everything, and thinking out of the box is part of the way we work. Today I realise that this room for manoeuvre is a luxury, because when I work with Western structures, I feel frustrated by the lack of flexibility of spirit that some professionals allow themselves. Sometimes it even seems counterproductive in our profession, as it can neutralise creativity.

This is no longer a scoop, since the arrival of Covid-19, the artistic sector has been strongly impacted. Also forcing cultural institutions to imagine new ways of staying in touch with their audiences. How is MACAAL dealing with this situation? What lessons could be learned from this experience?

For the moment, we are experiencing it a little like everyone else: virtually above all. So we are maximizing content development, accessibility and trying to understand its impact through digital.

There are big questions today, but I am afraid that we cannot draw any conclusions at the moment because we do not know when we will be able to reopen our doors or under what conditions. The digital alternative makes it possible to continue to exist but it does not feed into the value chain in a sustainable way. It is certain that the fact that we have reduced our horizons to the walls of our homes can only make us question the relevance of what we thought was essential. Today, deprived of these possibilities, we need to rethink our way of doing things. To sum up, I would go towards a less frenetic pace and more reinforcement.

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New Waves: Mohamed Melehi and the Casablanca Art School Archives offers a chronological journey that retraces the period in the artist’s career from the 1950’s to the 1980’s through the exploration of previously unseen works and archives. Curated by Morad Montazami for Zamân Books & Curating, developed with The Mosaic Rooms, London, the exhibition will take place from 21 September 2019 to 5 January 2020 at MACAAL.

1957-1964. From Rome to New York City: Primary structures and soft edge painting

The introduction to the exhibition takes us to Rome during the 1950s, where Melehi is one of the first artists from the African continent to show his work at avant-garde galleries such as Galleria Trastevere. The first exchanges and trips to New York, where he takes part in MoMA’s 1963 exhibition, Hard Edge and Geometric Painting, represent another new dimension for Melehi.

1964-1978. From New York city to Casablanca: Thousands of waves in hyperspace 

The return to Casablanca marks the beginning of a memorable adventure in the studios of Casablanca’s École des Beaux-Arts. Here, alongside Farid Belkahia, Mohammed Chabâa, Bert Flint and Toni Maraini, Melehi led one of the most significant movements in the history of post-colonial art. This section of the exhibition also focuses upon his practice as a designer-activist and the 1969 manifesto-exhibition in Jamaa el Fna square, as well as studio work and actions undertaken at the École des Beaux-Arts.

The 1980s. Reframing the wave: between Afro-berberism and post-colonial architecture

During the 1980s, Melehi developed a dynamic synthesis of all elements of his practice: he returned to African and Berber sources (notably in the painted ceilings of rural mosques), as the Casablanca group always encouraged, but also from his architectural experience in the 1970s (with the Faraoui and De Mazières firm), as well as his muralist practice, culminating in the legendary Asilah Arts Festival, which he co- founded in 1978.

Redesigned for the spaces of MACAAL and in consideration of its vocation, the exhibition path presents a majority of works that have rarely or never before been seen by the public, thus creating a new perspective upon the influence of Melehi and the École de Casa, both in and outside Morocco. An unprecedented documentary device allows spectators to plunge into this golden age of the Moroccan, Arab, and African avant-garde. To this end, original prints by Melehi in his role of documentary-photographer are on display. Specially-designed for the New Waves exhibition’s Moroccan stop is the “Afro-Berber Museum” room: here are objects culled from the collections of the Musée Tiskiwin-Bert Flint in Marrakech as well as exceptional artworks by Malika Agueznay, Farid Belkahia, Mohammed Chabâa, and Hossein Miloudi.

To further deepen understanding through historic documentation, the exhibition will conclude with a slideshow of photographic images from the Asilah Moussem (the intersection of Mediterranean and Arab-African trajectories as imagined by Melehi) as well as a screening of the rediscovered documentary film on Melehi, produced by the Bronx Museum of the Arts (NY) in 1984. Another outstanding documentary about the artist to be discovered here, the one by Faten Safieddine, La Vague à l’âme (1995), co-directed with Mohammed Boualem for Moroccan TV (2M).

Offering a richly-documented interpretation of Melehi’s work, highlighted by an original scenography, the exhibition shows us a lesser-known aspect of work that might be considered “globalised” before its time. Research led by Zamân Books & Curating – the platform specialising in Arab, African and Asian modernities – consists of retracing the steps of a path that is more complex than it might seem – extending beyond the binary schema of East and West. Paced via scenography that draws inspiration from Melehi’s colours, lines, and waves, New Waves proposes an appreciation of the multiple facets of this cosmopolitan artist: from his geometric experiments to the cultural revolution put in motion at the École de Casa and his key role in the development of art education in Morocco, as well as his significant work as photographer, editor, designer, graphic artist and muralist, which has largely contributed to shaping the aesthetics of post-colonial and pan-Arab artistic networks.

A programme of multidisciplinary events will be structured throughout the four months of the exhibition (conferences, round tables, publication launches, pedagogical workshops, etc.). Follow activities on: www.macaal.org

New Waves: Mohamed Melehi and the Casablanca Art School Archives

21 September 2019 – 5 January 2020

MACAAL, Al Maaden, Sidi Youssef Ben Ali, 40000 Marrakech

www.macaal.org

Tuesday – Sunday, 10AM – 6PM

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Trained as visual artist and architect, Paola Monzillo nurtures a passion for cartography. Moving mainly between collage, drawing and installation, the artist sets out to disrupt with her works the supposed neutrality of maps and images, while investigating issues linked to territory, history and representation.

Tapestry, Footprints in the Territory consists of a handmade tapestry made with maps of Latin American cities. The designs allude, on the one hand, to the iconography used in pre-Columbian textiles, and on the other, to the urban morphology diagram derived from the Spanish legislation of the Laws of the Indies. The work encompasses a debate on the dominant discourses, the appropriationism characteristic of cultural conquests and the myths around our own origins and identity.

BIENALSUR is the International Biennale of Contemporary Art of South America organized by the Argentine public university Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero (UNTREF). Its aim is to connect audiences of the five continents and create a global network of institutional associative collaboration in order to erase distances and borders and claim uniqueness in diversity. The first edition of BIENALSUR was launched in 2016 with the”Sur Global” meetings, an international platform for reflection around contemporary art, and continued until the end of 2017 with actions and exhibitions held around the world. Its second edition started last June and will continue until October 2019.

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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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Curated by Jeanne Mercier and Baptiste de Ville d’Avray of photography platform Afrique in Visu and the independent curator Madeleine de Colnet, the exhibition brings together the work of approximately 40 emerging and established photographers who are working from a distinctly African perspective. The artists examine universally relevant cultural concepts of tradition, spirituality, family and the environment, within the context of modern African experiences and daily life.

Africa Is No Island celebrates Afrique in Visu’s decade long working practice by selecting artists who have previously shown work on the platform as well as those from within Fondation Alliances’ collection. This platform itself has become a “visual territory”, overcoming borders and reporting different perspectives on, around and from the African continent. The curators have chosen works based on the following three themes; ‘Je suis ma représentation’ (I am my own representation), Dessiner des géographies’ (Drawing Borders) and ‘Recueillir l’histoire’ (Transcribe History). This display runs alongside a collage-based photography installation of works by other Afrique in Visu artists which covers part of the exhibition space.

The museum space has been transformed by architecture firm lazraqbret into an immersive environment inspired by the traditional architecture of Moroccan medinas, which are typically walled, with many narrow and maze-like streets. Visitors enter the exhibition via a door shaped in the customary circular style. The complex corridors ensure that visitors explore artworks in a staggered and measured manner, concealing the rich variety of artworks within. The exhibition is accompanied by a sound installation by Italian artist Anna Raimondo which emulates the everyday noises of Marrakech. By immersing the audience in a unique audiovisual environment, the setting brings to life the photographic practice in present-day Africa while reflecting MACAAL’s commitment to placing Moroccan art within the wider context of African cultural output.

The multi-layered images of Benin-based, Ivory Coast-born photographer Ishola Akpo blur the lines between fiction and reality. The series L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux, shown previously at Lagos Photo Festival, explores the photographer’s family history and memories through images which detail his grandmother’s dowry: gin bottles, clothes and beads.

Johannesburg-based artist Lebohang Kganye’s photography incorporates her interest in sculpture and performance, as well as her efforts to archive and memorialise her personal history and identity through family photographs.

Ecological issues linked to plastic and electronic waste are recurrent themes in Nyaba Léon Ouedraogo’s series Les Phantoms du Fleuve Congo which is inspired by the colonial-era text The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The works create a contemporary vision of the Congo River by showing life as it is lived in and around the symbolic artery of Africa.

Maïmouna Guerresi, a multimedia artist working with photography, sculpture, video, and installation, creates images which are suffused with spiritualism and are directly related to her own conversion to Sufism. Using recurring motifs such as the veil, her portraits are an affirmation and celebration of female spirituality and African womanhood.

Participating artists

• Anna Raimondo, Italy
• Ayana V Jackson, United States of America
• Baudouin Mouanda, Congo-Brazzaville
• Edgar Marsy, Réunion
• François-Xavier Gbré, Ivory Coast
• Hicham Benohoud, Morocco
• Hicham Gardaf, Morocco
• Ishola Akpo, Benin
• Joan Bardeletti, France
• Joana Choumali, Ivory Coast
• Lebohang Kganye, South Africa
• Leila Alaoui, France-Morocco
• Maïmouna Guerresi, Italy-Senegal
• Mohamed El Baz, Morocco
• Mohammed El Mourid, Morocco
• Mohammed Laouli, Morocco and Katrin Ströbel, Germany
• Mouna Karray, Tunisia
• Mustapha Azeroual, France-Morocco
• Namsa Leuba, Switzerland-Guinea
• Nicola Lo Calzo, Italy
• Nyaba Léon Ouedraogo, Burkina Faso
• Sammy Baloji, Democratic Republic of the Congo Walid Layadi
• Marfouk, Morocco

Paricipating artists, Africa is No Island; Collage-based photography installation of works

• Abdoulaye Barry, Chad
• Adrien Bitibaly, Burkina Faso
• Baudouin Mouanda, Congo-Brazzaville
• Carolle Benitah, France-Morocco
• Cristina de Middel, Spain
• David Lemor, France-Réunion
• Fakhri El Ghezal, Tunisia
• Fatoumata Diabaté, Mali
• Fethi Sahraoui, Algeria
• François-Xavier Gbré, Ivory Coast
• Georges Senga, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Héla Ammar, Tunisia
• Hélène Jayet, France-Mali
• Hicham Gardaf, Morocco
• Ishola Akpo, Benin
• Joan Bardeletti, France
• Joana Choumali, Ivory Coast
• Lebohang Kganye, South Africa
• Nabil Boutros, Egypt-France
• Namsa Leuba, Switzerland-Guinea
• Nestor Da, Burkina Faso
• Nicola Lo Calzo, Italy
• Nyaba Léon Ouedraogo, Burkina Faso Philippe Guionie, France
• Seydou Camara, Mali
• Wiame Haddad, France-Morocco-Tunisia Ymane Fakhir, Morocco
• Yo-Yo Gonthier, France-Réunion

Africa is No Island

Museum of African Contemporary Art Al-Maden (MACAAL), Al Maaden, Sidi Youssef Ben Ali, 40000
Marrakech

Tuesday – Sunday, 10h – 18h

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