Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa revisits a sequence of Morocco's cultural history: the encounter of two anthropologists and the intersecting history of their approaches to popular and traditional art objects.
This essay accompanied the eponymous exhibition presented by the curator Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa as part of the curatorial project "School of Casablanca" at ifa-Gallery in 2024 in Berlin initiated by KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin) and the Sharjah Art Foundation (Sharjah), in collaboration with ThinkArt (Casablanca), Zamân Books & Curating (Paris) and the Goethe-Institut Morocco.
The essay and the accompanying exhibition are devoted to the contemporary reception of Maghreb Art, a biannual journal of the Casablanca School of Fine Arts, published in three issues under the editorial direction of the artist Farid Belkahia (1934-2014), the Italian art historian Toni Maraini (1941), the Dutch anthropologist Bert Flint (1931-2024), and the artist Mohamed Melehi (1936-2020), who was also its artistic director.