While these tapestries were once diminished by academia and the avant-garde as mere “womanly craft,” contemporary artists from the Maghreb region in Northwest Africa are transforming the medium in ways that both honor and update longstanding traditions.
Many grew up around looms and recall their grandmothers’ hands on raw wool, their mothers’ crochet, or the cooperative workshops in their region. They attend to the labor, gestures, and knowledge that lived in the bodies of their women ancestors.
Finally, biennales, fairs, and museums around the world are starting to catch on.
Here are five of the most exciting contemporary artists inspired by Moroccan rugs and North African weaving.
There is an organic quality to the art scene in Tunis, where art grows out of the bustling, lively, chaotic energy that agitates the city’s streets and animates individuals trying to channel it into an art system.
That’s not an easy feat for a scene that can’t rely on any kind of government master plan, but solely on a handful of people who have set out on a mission to build something durable.
Kaïs Dhifi’s sculptural pieces reflect a balance between control and spontaneity, embracing imperfection, chance, and the history embedded in materials. In this interview Dhifi talks about his latest concept, an inverted Mediterranean.
My interview with Kaïs Dhifi is on Markaz Review, as a feature artist for the Mediterreneans issue.
Morocco’s art scene is diverse and growing, spanning independent spaces, commercial galleries and international fairs. While Marrakech positions itself as a global hub, Casablanca’s scene is closely tied to its history and political reality.
My report from Marrakech and Casa has just been published by the German magazine Qantara.
Loft Gallery director has spent nearly two decades building one of the country’s most important contemporary art spaces, while quietly assembling a collection guided entirely by instinct and love.
Born in Casablanca in 1969, Ymane Fakhir is a Franco-Moroccan artist based in Marseille. Trained at the Casablanca School of Fine Arts, the Aix-en-Provence School of Art and the Arles National School of Photography, she combines photography, video and installation to explore memory, rituals and intangible heritage.
I have interviewed the artist for the Hebdo du Quotidien de l’Art.
Below the extended version of my latest article which appeared on Le Quotidien de L’Art.
Il y a encore quelques années, la proposition culturelle dans la seconde ville de France en matière d’arts plastiques était extrêmement limitée : quelques lieux informels, des programmations éparses, un public principalement local et un marché de l’art quasi-absent.
Mais, depuis
Manifesta en 2020 et grâce au travail acharné d’espaces créatifs comme la
Friche Belle de Mai, et des muséums tel quel le MUCEM, le [mac] et le Frac, les
propositions se sont faites de plus en plus audacieuses, attirant un public à
la fois national et international. Les galeries indépendantes, plus d’une
vingtaine aujourd’hui, quadrillent le centre-ville dont celles d’artistes qui ont
ouvert leurs ateliers ici à Marseille, après la pandémie.
La vivacité grandissante
de cette scène n’a pas échappée à l’entrepreneur culturelle Becca Hoffman de
l’association 74Arts, qui organise des foires itinérantes, de Aspen à
Singapour. L’Edition marseillaise de 74Arts s’appelle « La Mer, » et
a l’ambition de relier directement les studios d’artistes marseillais aux
grandes galeries françaises ainsi qu’aux collectionneurs internationaux. « On
pense que Marseille a beaucoup changée au cours des dernières années » note
Becca Hoffman, qui vit entre New York et Antibes. « Après le Covid, on a vu
beaucoup de nouvelles fondations et des collectionneurs qui ont déménagés ici.
Marseille, c’est l’avenir. Il y a une énergie créative qui est ouverte à tout
le monde, mais surtout au Méditerranéen. »
In her work, currently on show both in Athens and at the Venice Biennale, Moroccan Artist Bouchra Khalili highlights the power of storytelling for the disenfranchised subjects of history.
The successful Menart Fair, that has just concluded in Paris, is showing how artists from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are leading the conversation, while also opening up new perspectives in the European cultural arena.
Middle East Monitor has just published my latest article titled: “Artist Alessandra Ferrini explores the complex relationship between Libya and Italy.”
The article is based on an interview with London-based Italian artist Alessandra Ferrini, who deepens the conversation around colonial and recent Libyan history, creating work about the manipulation of information, colonial memory, trauma and reparations.
I’m writing about Libyan contemporary art once again, this time for The New Arab, a magazine I regularly read, and I’m happy to start collaborating with.
The piece is based on an interview with Libyan curator Wareda Elmehdawi, who seeks to shed light on the richness of Libyan art history through her family’s work with the historical Tripoli Art House.
Since I started writing about Libya in 2021, I grew more and more interested in the history of the country and how artists and people in the cultural field are retelling the Libyan story.
So clearly I was so excited to learn from curator Najlaa Elageli about this show she put up in Tripoli’s old medina with artists Hadia Gana and Alla Budabbus, called “The Libyan Pantry Project.” I had to write about it!
By the way, this is my 50th piece for Middle East Monitor. What an honour collaborating with them for such a long time!
Naima Morelli is an arts writer and journalist specialized in contemporary art from Asia-Pacific and the MENA region.
She has written for the Financial Times, Al-Jazeera, The Art Newspaper, ArtAsiaPacific, Internazionale and Il Manifesto, among others, and she is a regular contributor to Plural Art Mag, Middle East Monitor and Middle East Eye as well as writing curatorial texts for galleries.
She is the author of three books on Southeast Asian contemporary art.
![Team photo from left to right:
Amélie Kalafat (Artistic assistant)
Clara Alabed Alnaef, (Partnership & communication),Joanna Chevalier (Artistic director), Laure d’Hauteville (Founder & fair director), Tara El Khoury Mikhaël (Gallery relations), Léonie Racy (Scenographer), Camelia Esmaili, (Special Project Advisor) [@Irenederosen]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/2%C2%B0-equipe-menart-fair-2023-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C798&ssl=1)
![The work of Alessandra Ferrini [Image courtesy of the artist]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/alessandra-ferrini-maxxi.jpg?resize=1200%2C630&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
![A new show in Tripoli looks at 70 years of Libya’s consumer culture. [Photo By Najlaa Elageli]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/A-new-show-in-Tripoli-looks-at-70-years-of-Libyas-consumer-culture.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
