1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair

Returning for the third edition in Marrakech, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair was held in the luxurious hotel La Mamounia.. The work presented by 20 leading international galleries revealed an array of insights into the diverse perspectives and current artwork being created by African and diaspora artists.

Among the artists who stood out was Thania Peterson from Cape Town, represented by WHATIFTHEWORLD, who exhibited works from her tapestry series. Each one is a brightly threaded, hand-embroidered musallah (Muslim prayer mat), created as a talismanic trope to address nihilistic absolutism while reminding us of the importance of faith and the hope that it initiates, which has been misappropriated in our current neo-liberal age.

Mounir Fatmi, represented by Goodman Gallery, was born in Tangiers, Morocco. His work deals with the looming collapse of our consumerist societies. Influenced from his early childhood spent in flea markets in Morocco with his mother, his pieces are created through the use of once significant but now obsolete objects such as VHS tapes, antenna cables and typewriters creating a dialogue between memory, language and communication within a time of crisis.

Amina Agueznay, represented by Loft Art Gallery, is from Casablanca, Morocco and has a background in architecture that is noticeable in her meticulously constructed pieces forged from locally sourced materials using traditional methods. Loft Art Gallery exhibited eight boxes, each 50 x 50cm in size, displaying crafted materials including spun wool, metal and wood, all manipulated in intricate ways, showing Agueznay’s passion for structure, artisanship and being a custodian for tradition.

1-54 Forum

Alongside the fair was the 1-54 Forum hosted by The Showroom, London, which introduced a number of talks, roundtables and panel discussions around the theme, Communal Knowledge At Large. In a riveting panel titled Enacting Agency, we heard from Hansi Momodu-Gordon, Francesca Masoero and Carlos Perez Marín, which was chaired by The Showroom director Elvira Dyangani Ose.

They each spoke about their respective projects. Future Assembly - a cross-cultural platform to bridge dialogue across communities hosting talks, residencies and exhibitions. Qanat - an experimental programme dedicated to collective research on water policies and poetics. And the Caravane Tighmert Research and Creation programme – an unconventional workshop-based residency set by the oasis of Tighmert, Morocco where artists come to create work out of found materials. The discussion fleshed out topics relating to vernacular knowledge, models and modes for community based projects that enable agency and how to create platforms for a communal knowledge that is held without power biases.

Le 18 - A L’Épreuve Du Tamis

The group show A L’Épreuve Du Tamis was to be found at Le 18, a multidisciplinary riad dedicated to creation, dissemination and cultural and artistic exchanges. The exhibition explored a group of artists’ take on cultural heritage and knowledge, both material and immaterial, within Morocco. “The exhibition aims to question the intersecting history of the concepts of tradition and contemporary art, moving from a recent orientation of Moroccan art, which invests artistic and cultural heritages and attempts to render them through different representations,” says curator Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa.

The project led with a performance by Joe Namy on the roof of the riad and included works ranging from installation and sculpture to video by Mohamed Arejdal, Nassim Azarzar, Ihsane Boudrig M’barek Bouhchichi, Khadija El Abyad and Abdeljalil Saouli plus projects by Caravane Tighmert and the Festival International d’Art Indigène.

The latter presented a drum closed with a net at one end and open at the other, hanging above the viewer, with the inside ring assembled with a continuous panoramic landscape of images. The viewer must enter into the structure to experience it’s narrative, each viewer starting and ending in a different position, allowing varying and continuous stories to be created depending on the individual’s rhythm and movement, thereby displacing the regimented order of time and dismantling the order of things. This work congregates the predominant themes for the exhibition, posing the underlining question - what is the center and what is the periphery?

MACAAL - Have You Seen A Horizon Lately?

The Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL) opened its doors to the new group show Have You Seen A Horizon Lately? The exhibition investigates the politics of space as seen through a variety of perspectives that differ from the norm, showing a truly compelling body of multidisciplinary artworks which were mostly made in situ responding to the environment. Artists include Maxwell Alexandre (Brazil), Felipe Arturo (Colombia), Amina Benbouchta (Morocco), Gaëlle Choisne (France), Rahima Gambo (Nigeria), Akira Ikezoe (Japan), Kiluanji Kia Henda (Angola), Kapwani Kiwanga (Canada – France), Yoko Ono (USA), Daniel Otero Torres (Colombia) and Sandrine Pelletier (Switzerland) and the show is curated by Marie-Ann Yemsi.

On walking into the museum you were confronted with Daniel Otero Torres’s Lluvia, where cascading water falls from drum to drum in an impressive installation taking up the central double story space, referencing the process of decontaminating polluted water. Kiluanji Kia Henda presented a harrowing video, Concrete Affection – Zopo Lady. Engaging with Angola’s colonial past, the work depicts the streets of Luanda in 1975 from which the Portuguese narrator is forced to leave, turning utopia into dystopia.

The exhibition extended beyond the museum space too - pasted on the walls of the Marrakech medina were large-scale photographic prints presenting an open-air exhibition by Malian photographer Seydou Keïta. The opening was a festive affair with a performance from British Zimbabwean singer Shingai, which was staged in the garden of the spectacular MACAAL building under straw umbrellas and reed mats looking onto the installation piece by Sandrine Pelletier with the engraved words “If the sun were to drown in the sea of sad clouds”.

AFRƎEculture

The first edition of AFRƎEculture, a multi-platform salon series, was launched in the shady retreat of Jname Tamsna hotel. AFRƎEculture is a non-profit organisation co-founded by writer Mashariki Williamson and former lawyer and Jname Tamsna owner, Meryanne Loum-Martin. The programme included literature panels, film screenings of System K and Queen & Slim, and a collaboration with Black Shade Projects (read our feature on the Malian photography exhibition here.)

Highlights included a panel discussion on Creativity in Entrepreneurship which hosted banker Yvonne Fasinro, True Africa founder Claude Grunitzky, head of inclusivity and diversity at WPP Adrienne Smith, tech wizard Rakia Finley and moderated by founder of What We See, Misan Harriman. The variety of backgrounds and positions made for a dynamic discussion surrounding legacy, affirmation, black investment, female empowerment, value systems and ultimately the power of art to bind the world.

The discussion ended with Adrienne commanding the audience: “On the count of three say YES!” The audience responded, “Yes”. “Again, on the count of three say YES!” and a resounding “YES”. “Now let me tell you what you have all agreed to… saying yes to yourself, when others around you may say maybe not.” This was the overarching message from the discussion that self-belief, work ethic, vision, perseverance and to some extent winning the lottery of life, established the success stories of the speakers, and is the sentiment to carry away with you.

Published on 10/03/2020