Sharjah 24: Following its presentation at Tate St Ives from May 2023 to January 2024 and Sharjah Art Foundation from February to June 2024, The Casablanca Art School: Platforms and Patterns for a Postcolonial Avant-Garde (1962–1987) is on view at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt until 13 October 2024. Divided chronologically and thematically into eight sections, the exhibition reveals how Casablanca Art School (CAS) artists integrated abstract art with African and Amazigh traditions to formulate a new vision of Morocco’s visual culture and heritage.
After Morocco gained independence from France in 1955, the main representatives of the School—Farid Belkahia (1934–2014), Mohammed Chabâa (1935–2013), Bert Flint (1931–2022), Toni Maraini (b. 1941), and Mohamed Melehi (1936–2020)—together with students, teachers and associated artists, quickly became the central driving force in the development of postcolonial modern art in the region. In realising their aims, they combined an openness to local history with the new social and political reality.
Engaging with the ideas of the Bauhaus movement, CAS artists reevaluated the connections between arts, crafts, design and architecture in the local context, fusing metropolitan arts with elements of the vernacular heritage that had been undermined during the colonial era. On view at the Schirn are over 100 works by 22 CAS artists, including dynamic abstract paintings, urban murals, crafts, graphic design, interior design and typography. Rarely seen archival materials, such as film footage, vintage journals, photographs and prints, complement these displays, revealing a transnational Moroccan art scene.
Three films from the series School of Walking (2023) by the artist duo Bik Van der Pol (Liesbeth Bik and Jos Van der Pol) can be seen in the Schirn’s publicly accessible rotunda. Through conversations with contemporary artists and cultural producers, these films portray Casablanca as a modern city and creative centre, a place where artists from the 1960s and 1970s were able to develop their dreams of a shared future. The protagonists in the films share their different experiences of the city and its history. Both School of Walking and the overall exhibition are part of a key moment of international research into the Casablanca Art School, initiated in 2020 by the KW Institute for Contemporary Art and Sharjah Art Foundation in partnership with Goethe-Institut Marokko, ThinkArt and Zamân Books & Curating.
The artworks included in the exhibition are by the following artists: Carla Accardi, Malika Agueznay, Hamid Alaoui, Mohamed Ataallah, Herbert Bayer, Farid Belkahia, Mohammed Chabâa, Saâd Ben Cheffaj, Ahmed Cherkaoui, Anna Draus-Hafid, André Elbaz, Abdellah El Hariri, Abdelkrim Ghattas, Mustapha Hafid, Mohamed Hamidi, Mohammed Kacimi, Miloud Labied, Mohamed Melehi, Houssein Miloudi, Abderrahman Rahoule and Chaïbia Tallal.
The exhibition was originally co-organised by Sharjah Art Foundation and Tate St Ives in collaboration with Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. The presentation at Sharjah Art Foundation was curated by Morad Montazami and Madeleine de Colnet for Zamân Books & Curating, with Hoor Al Qasimi, Director of Sharjah Art Foundation; May Alqaydi, Assistant Curator, Sharjah Art Foundation; and associate researchers Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa and Maud Houssais. The iteration at Tate St Ives was curated by Morad Montazami and Madeleine de Colnet for Zamân Books & Curating, with Anne Barlow, Director, Tate St Ives; Giles Jackson, Assistant Curator, Tate St Ives; and associate researchers Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa and Maud Houssais.
At the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, the exhibition was curated by Morad Montazami and Madeleine de Colnet for Zamân Books & Curating, in cooperation with Esther Schlicht, Exhibition Director, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Luise Leyer, Curatorial Consultant to the Management, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; and associate researchers Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa and Maud Houssais.
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