Symbols and forms jusqu'au 15 février 2025 (2024)

We are delighted to present a series of 1980s drawings on paper and skin, in which geometric forms became a leitmotif of the fundamental abstract dimension of Farid Belkahia (1934-2014, Marrakesh, Morocco).

As one of the founders of the Casablanca Art School, Belkahia defied entrenched pictorial traditions and defined a modernist discourse and pedagogy that are emblematic of his Moroccan heritage. His approach imperatively propelled a deliberate disruption of the conventions of art production­­ — an explicit rupture with Western referential principals, grounds and aesthetics. Belkahia's commitment to interiority and identity prompted and exteriorised an exploration of materiality, namely copper and skin. Through a re-appropriation of traditional arts that debunked the lineage of colonial modernist frames, his new symbolic iconography restored the sanctity of materials and the graphism used in Moroccan crafts and Islamic arts. His symbolic register is populated by Amazigh shapes and patterns, Tifinagh signs and natural pigments inherent to his material culture, whereby he navigates corporality, spirituality and sensuality through geometric and abstract precision.

Free entrance